See also: Setup, Logic, Budget Scenarios, Committed Value, Entering Transactions, Budget Details, Authorising Orders

Dimensions Only - This feature is not available in Dimensions Lite

This feature enables control of Purchase Orders (and Credit Notes) based on:

And provides:

Please refer also to the Logic of Purchase Control.

This module is only available if it has been unlocked, and has been enabled in Purchase Order Options. The unlock will control the visibility of the options below and therefore of the Budgets on the User record, and Committed Value on the Nominal record.

The Budget Authorisation option in Purchase Orders Options - Transactions controls the visibility of the other controls. These are:

The selection of Authorise All Orders will remove the User and Nominal Budget Control options and will require all Orders to be authorised regardless of any Budgets.

Both User and Nominal Budget Control can be used, or you can select just one method of control. For either type you can select:

Whether comparisons against the Budgets can be made on a Period or Year to Date basis.

If either of these Budgets is exceeded:

Either Warning Only can be selected, where the User is simply warned that the Order has resulted in the Budget being exceeded and it is then processed as normal.

Or Force to Batch can be selected, where the User is warned that the Order line has resulted in the Budget being exceeded and that the Order is being Batched pending Authorisation.

Whichever method of Budget Control you select, the entry of an Order that requires authorisation will prevent the Order from being printed. Select Allow Printing of Orders Awaiting Authorisation to enable the Order to be printed.

In Security Profiles - Budgets, you can set spend limits for all Users in a Profile, by Maximum Order Value, and/or by Current Budget (per Year or per Period).

This can then be modified for an individual User by their settings (see below).

In User Records - Budgets, you can set spend limits for each User, by Maximum Order Value, and/or by Current Budget (per Year or per Period).

These spend limits will apply to Purchase Orders and Credit Notes.

When using User Budgets, any User that does not have any Budget limit, should normally have the option All Orders Require Authorisation... ticked.

Leaving the values as 0.00 (default) does NOT give the User a zero value Budget, it means that the field is NOT subject to a limit.

i.e. If the Maximum Order Value is zero, but there is a value in the Period/Year Budget, then individual Orders will not be checked, but the total spend for the Period/Year will be.

If the Maximum Order Value is entered, but the Period/Year Budget is zero, then only each individual Order will be checked, and no check occurs for the Period/Year Budget.

If this option is not ticked, Orders entered by a User whose Budget values are left as 0.00, will not need to be authorised.

If a User exceeds their Maximum Order Value spend limits, then the Order will always be batched.

If a User exceeds their Period or Year Budgets, a warning message will be displayed, and the Order will be batched, and it may or may not be printed, as determined by the System settings.

When purchase requests are converted to purchase orders, using the Consolidate Requests feature, the budget of the User who is consolidating the requests is the budget that is checked as it is this User who is creating the orders.

Each Nominal Account can have a Budget set against it.

N.B. Purchase Control always looks at the current Budget - even if new Budgets are set part of the way through the year.

When transaction Detail lines are entered, and the Analysis Code used refers to a Nominal Account with a Budget, some of this Budget is 'used' by that transaction line. Once the actual spend reaches the Budgeted limit, Users entering transactions will be warned.

An option in Nominal Account - Info enables you to select that even if the Budget is zero, it is still checked, as no spend is authorised against this Nominal Account.

Every transaction that updates a Nominal Account 'uses' some of the Nominal Account Budget. This is called the 'Committed Value'.

This is stored by Period and by Year.
It is shown on the Nominal Account record below the Difference % fields.
There is an enquiry option on the Nominal record window to view the Batched transactions which make up the Committed Value.

When Orders or Credit Notes are entered through POP, the Committed Value (Batched) + Actual (Posted) is compared to the Nominal Account Budget, and if this is exceeded by this Transaction, then the actions selected above occur.

If a transaction is Batched because either or both Budgets have been exceeded, it must be authorised before it can be processed.

If the User Budget has been exceeded then:

If authorising by Value, a User with a bigger spend limit must authorise the order.

If authorising by Department, a User in the same Department must authorise, unless it is a User who can authorise All Users.

If the Nominal budget has been exceeded then only those Users who can Authorise Budget Excesses can authorise the transaction. In addition, some Users can Authorise Own Orders.

If both the User and Nominal budgets are exceeded, then authorisation must be done by someone who can Authorise Budget Excesses or can Authorise Own Orders.

An Order that has been authorised, cannot then be Edited. If you need to Edit the authorised Order, you will have to Complete it (as is), and then Duplicate it as a new Order - this can then be Edited in the normal way, but it will then have to be authorised as usual.

The following reports are available for Purchase Control:

User Purchasing Budgets window Print function (this is also available for Profiles, as it is the same window).

Authorisation report.

Budget Transaction Report.

Trial Balance and Profit & Loss both have an option to include the Budget details and/or the Committed Costs.

When a transaction is authorised the authoriser ID and the reason that authorisation was required is saved into the Transaction Notes, that can be viewed from the Transaction Enquiry - View Transaction.

This information is in a non editable field.

On the Nominal Account record, below the Difference % value, the Committed value is shown. There is an Enquiry button to provide more detailed information.