Those located in Europe will use the terms Service Charges, where customers located in North America and Asia-Pacific will use the term Outgoings. Those located in North America will also refer to tenants as Leases. For the purpose of this article, we will refer to it as Outgoings and Tenants. For more information on regional terminology, refer to this article or contact support.
The next step after creating a budget is approving it. Select the Approve button to start the process:
The following can either be set for all tenancies or set individually per tenancy.
- Select the allocation type from the following options:
- Single Line Budget Allocation - one line covering the tenancy's allocation for the whole budget
- Multi-Line Schedule Allocation - a separate line will be added for the tenancy's allocation for each schedule within the budget
- Multi-Line Expense Allocation - a separate line will be added for each expense code used within the budget
- Select either the Rent Template or Outgoings Template. The current rent or outgoings template for the tenancy will be selected automatically if one exists
- Select the default chart of account
- The default tax type will set automatically to the type associated with the chart of account but it can be changed
- The description will be defaulted based on the allocation type
- Select either Add Line Items or Replace Line Items on the selected template
- View the tenancy details (opens in a new tab)
- Click to edit the details for each tenancy
- Reset the details back to default if they have been edited
- Save All and Approve will approve the budget, saves all the tenancy allocations and pushes details out to the selected templates
- Skip and Approve approves the budget but no changes to templates are made
Once a budget is approved, an Approved Templates tab is visible. This summarises the approved budget at that point in time. Any modifications made to the budget after this point are not reflected in this tab.
Now that the budget is approved, the Owner Contribution tab now shows a button called Create Repeating Invoice (below). This allows you to generate repeating invoices for the Owner for their expected liability based on the approved budget with custom frequencies available. Once you lock the budget the repeating invoice button will no longer be available.
The Repeating Invoice pulls through the total Owner contribution liability amount and defaults to a monthly invoice frequency across the budget period. If you wish to change the frequency, you will need to manually adjust the periodic amount. Note that a repeating invoice cannot be generated for a credit, so if the Owner is in credit the Create Repeating Invoice button will not appear
A Budget Certificate is also available in the Reports tab and can be downloaded for all tenants who occupy an area in the budget. This can be used to inform them of their contribution towards the total budget amounts. Additionally, many other reports are now available given the budget is approved.