Budgets and Sub Programs

Budgets and Sub Programs

Overview

Budgets allow your Sub-Program Managers to submit Budget requests for a Financial Period.  You will need to work through the following process:

  1. Set-up Sub Programs
  2. Provide Budget information for Sub-Program Managers
  3. Open Budget to Sub-Program Managers
  4. Review/Approve Budget Requests
To use the Budget feature of the Financial Management module you will need to ensure you have the applicable Financial Period created and also your Revenue/Expense accounts imported.  For information on these processes, please refer to the 'Financial Management Administration Guide' article from our Knowledge Base.

Permissions

To administer the Budgets, staff will need the BudgetAdmin permission. 

Please refer to the 'Permissions' article from our Knowledge Base for details on applying permissions.

Setting up Sub-Programs

The first part of the Budget process is to set up your Sub-Programs.  You can do this by importing them from CASES or by setting them up manually in Compass.


Import Sub-Programs

Please refer to the 'Financial Management and CASES' article from our Knowledge Base for the steps on exporting your Sub-Programs from CASES and importing them into Compass.

Please Note: One person can manage multiple sub-programs. Only one manager can be assigned to each sub-program. The Business Manager or creator of the overall budget can also manage sub-programs.


Manually Adding Sub-Programs

Sub-Programs can also be added manually through the same page. To create a Sub-Program manually click on the 'Add New Sub-Program' button and enter the Sub-Program details, then click 'Update'.

     

CodeIdentifying number for the sub-program. Must correspond with the code created in CASES.
NameHeading/Title of Sub-Program.
ManagerThe person in charge of submitting the budget for a particular faculty/department/program within your school. Entering their details will allow them access to their sub-programs but not any other manager's sub-programs. Any Staff member can manage a sub-program in Compass.

The status of a sub-program determines what level of acess the manager of a sub-program has.

OpenThe manager of the sub-program can enter/edit information in their budget.
LockedThe manager of the sub-program can see everything they have entered, but cannot edit any information.
ClosedThe manager of the sub-program cannot see the sub-program.

As the creator and manager of the overall budget you will always be able to see and edit everything. If at any time you wish to edit the sub-program, including the status, you can do so by clicking on the pencil edit button next to the sub-program in the table.

Once you have created all of your Sub-Programs, you can bulk manage these using the functions at the top of the Sub-Programs dashboard.

Using the 'Bulk Actions' button you can change the status of all Sub-Programs at once (for example you might want to change all Sub-Programs to 'Closed' after a deadline).
     
Please Note: You can easily copy the Sub-Program Managers from a previous period to the current period using the 'Copy Manager from' option in the 'Bulk Actions' button.
     

Sub-Program Units

When creating Sub-Programs you can set a Sub-Program to contain Units. Units are a further division of a Sub-Program which allow you to divide revenue and expenditure further. If you have selected the Units checkbox when creating the budget, all sub-programs will automatically be created with units.
     


For example:
You may wish to divide the sub-program 'English' into 'Year 7 English' and 'Year 8 English'. See the section titled Managing a Sub-Program with Units below for further details on this.

Please refer to the 'Managing a Sub-Program with Units' section further below for further details on using Units.


Provide Budget Details

You can provide key information to the Sub-Program Managers by editing the text content in the lower section of the Financial Management page.  This text is displayed for the Sub-Program Managers and can be used to advise them of due dates and key school information.  Click 'Edit Text' to make your changes.
     

Click 'Save' to update your changes.

     



Open the Budget to Sub-Program Managers

To open the Budget, on the Financial Management page, click 'Bulk Actions' and choose 'Update all sub-program statuses', then select 'Open'.
     

This will make it available to the Sub-Program Managers for them to complete.  They will need to go to the Financial Management page under the Organisation menu to do this.
     

Managing a Sub-Program

Please Note:
If you are using the Units function within the Budget module, please read the section titled 'Managing a Sub-Program with Units' further below.
The Manager of a Sub-Program puts forward a proposed budget which will then be approved by the Business Manager.

As the manager of a Sub-Program or Unit, to access the budgets, navigate to the Organisation menu (grid icon) and click 'Financial Management'. The section called Budgeting: My Sub-Programs and Units will display all Sub-Programs and/or Units that you manage.
     


Click on the name of the Sub-Program/Unit to open up that Sub-Program's management page. 
     

The Sub-Program Manager is required to enter an evaluation of the budget in the box at the top of the page. Once this is complete, click the 'Submit my Evaluation' button to continue.

     


Adding an Expense Item

The 'Expense Items' section lists all of the expenditures for the sub-program for the budget period. Expenditures are divided into different expense sources such as Photocopying, Class Materials and Library Books etc. A full list of expense sources will be dependent on the school and is exported directly from CASES.


To add an expense item, select the item source from the drop down list next to Add Item Source and click 'Add' at the top of the page. This will add a line in the Expense Items table under that heading. Then add the amount of funds to be budgeted under this category in the 'Requested' box. (Only members of the 'CompassBusinessManagers' group can modify the 'Approved' field.) 

Sub-Program Managers have the ability to request funds which the Business Manager then approves.

If the Compass Financial Management module has been used previously, the amount approved in the previous budgeting cycle will be displayed under the heading 'Prev Cycle' in the table. This means spending from year or year (or similar budgeting cycle) can be monitored and tracked.

Expense items can be edited at any time while a sub-program is 'open' and can be deleted by clicking on the red cross in the right hand column of the table.


Using the Calculated Request Function

The calculated request function will automatically calculate the total of a revenue or expense item per head or per unit. When the function is turned on, two extra columns will appear on the Sub-Program and/or Unit page for both Expense and Revenue Items.

Please note
On this page only, the term 'Unit' will refer to a measurement of expenses/revenue items where multiple identical items are purchased and not the division of a sub-program (see section titled Managing a Sub-Program with Units).
Staff with the BudgetsAdmin permission can turn on or off the calculated request function from the Financial Periods section, by clicking the Pencil icon to edit the current year, and either ticking or unticking the box under the 'Calc'd Request?' heading, and then clicking the green tick button on the far right to save.



RequestedTypically this will be the amount requested last year. (For example, you would enter $900 if last year the sub-program received $900 to purchase bunsen burners).
X InitialNumber of units required last year (for example X Initial - 20 would mean you purchased 20 busen burners last year).
X RevisedThe number of total units needed this year (for example X Revised - 22 would mean you require 22 bunsen burners to be purchased this year).
Requested RevisedThis figure is automatically calculated using the formula below to determine the total cost of the expense item according to the data in the other fields.
FormulaRequested Revised = ((Requested x X Revised) / X Initial)
ApprovedThis function is not available to Sub-Program Managers. Approved amounts are entered by the Business Manager. This is the amount which will appear on any reports generated and the export into CASES.
CommentComments about specific requested items can be added here. This is not a required field and can be left blank.


You can still enter expense/revenue items as normal, simply leave the 'Initial' and 'Revised' columns as '1'.

Please Note: Always remember to save your progress regularly by clicking on the 'Save Sub-Program' button at the very bottom of the screen.
General comments can also be made in the 'Sub-Program Comments' section under the Expense Items. This provides managers with the ability to make general or overarching comments about their proposed budgets.

Capital Expenditure/Equipment Requests

This section is used to put in requests for funding to purchase equipment.
Please Note: These expense items are only requests; there is no ability to approve them using the Compass Financial Management module. These items are not imported into CASES.



To add a new Equipment request click the 'Add New Equipment Request' button, and complete the form for each requested item. Click 'Insert' to add item request. If at any time you wish to go back and change the request you can click 'Edit' or delete the request by clicking the red cross icon next to the item in the table.

If at any time you wish to log out and continue your work later you can do so. Always remember to save your work before exiting by clicking on the 'Save Sub-Program' button at the very bottom of the screen.

Managing a Sub-Program with Units

Units within a Sub-Program can be created either by the Sub-Program Manager or the Business Manager (manager of the overall budget).


Creating Units

Units give you the ability to divide expenditure into further categories, however you cannot add expenses directly into a Sub-Program which contains Units. One or more Units need to be created inside the Sub-Program and individual expenses added into the Unit(s). The expenses displayed inside a Sub-Program are a total of all of the expenses detailed in the Units.

To create a Unit select the 'Add New Unit' button at the top of the grid and enter the Unit's information (Manager and Status) and click the green tick to save.
     
Please Note: The manager of a Unit can be any staff member; it does not have to be the same person as the manager of the Sub-Program. The manager of a Sub-Program can edit and add to a Unit's budget even if that person is not the manager of the Unit. This allows a single Sub-Program to be constructed by multiple users, who manage various areas.
The sub-program manager can still enter general comments for the whole sub-program. A unit manager can add general comments for the overall Unit on the Unit page.
Please Note: Units will not be displayed in CASES. When the Budget is imported into CASES the totals displayed in the sub-program dashboard will be the totals imported into CASES.

Adding Expense Items

The Expense Items section lists all of the expenditures for that Unit during the budget period. Expenditures are divided into different expense accounts. The full list of available expense accounts will be dependent on your school and is exported directly from CASES.

You cannot add expenses directly into a Sub-Program which contains Units. To add an expense item to a Sub-Program containing Units click on the name of the Unit to enter the screen where you can indicate expense and revenue items for that specific Unit. 
     


From the Unit page scroll down to either the Revenue Items or Expense Items. Select the item source from the drop down list and click "Add" next to it. From here you can enter the total funds requested against expense items or enter revenue items.
After entering any information on this screen always be sure to scroll to the bottom and click 'Save Unit' in order to save your work.
The other buttons at the bottom allow you to navigate back to either the Dashboard for your sub-program, or the Financial Management Dashboard.


You can navigate between the different units of a sub-program by using the dropdown menu at the top of the screen.

     


Capital Expenditure/Equipment Requests

This section is used to put in requests for funding to purchase equipment or other capital expenditures.
Please Note: These expense items are only requests; there is no ability to approve them using the Compass Financial Management module. These items are not imported into CASES.



To add a new Equipment Request click the 'Add New Equipment Request' button, and complete the form for each requested item. Click 'Insert' to add your item request. If at any time you wish to go back and change the request you can click 'Edit' or delete the request by clicking the red cross icon next to the item in the table.

If at any time you wish to log out and continue work later you can do so. Always remember to save your work before exiting by clicking on the 'Save Sub-Program' button at the very bottom of the screen.


Approving Budgets

Once the due date for Sub-Program Managers to have their Budgets submitted has passed, you can set the Sub-Programs to 'Closed' while you review the requests.  Setting them as Closed will mean they are no longer viewable by the Sub-Program Manager and will allow you to add your approvals before releasing this information to the Managers.

Once you approvals are finalised you can then set the Sub-Programs to 'Locked' which will allow the managers to see the approved amounts.

To firstly set the Sub-Programs as 'Closed', on the Financial Management page, click 'Bulk Actions', choose 'Closed'.
     

To review the requests, click into each Sub-Program.  Put the approved amount in the Approved column for each item.
     

Make sure you click the 'Save Sub-Program' button at the bottom of the page to save your approved amounts.

Continue to click into each Sub-Program to add your approved amounts.
Tip: You can update the Approved column of all closed Sub-Programs to be the Requested amount by clicking the 'Bulk Actions' button on the Financial Management page and choosing 'Copy Item Requested amounts to Approved amounts'.  This will mean you only need to edit items that are being approved for a different amount to the amount requested.
     


Once you have added all the Approved amounts you can update the Status of the Sub-Programs to 'Locked' (under the 'Bulk Actions' button) to allow the managers to see the approved budget for their Sub-Program. 


Reports

There are a range of reports available to export in relation to Budgets including the export file for CASES.

To access the reports, click the 'Financial Periods' button at the top of the Financial Management page.
For each Financial Period you will see a column of Budget Reports.

     

Click 'Reports' for the applicable period and choose the report you would like to export.

    

     


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