Budgets are used when Operating Expenses are forecast for a period of time, usually a financial year, and on charged to each tenancy. At the conclusion of each budget period, the actual costs are compared with the forecast costs and a wash-up is completed, invoicing the tenants for any shortfall, and issuing credits for any overpayments.
Create a new budget
To add a new budget for a property:
- Click on the Outgoings / Property Charges tab
- Click Budgets tab at the top
- Click New Outgoings Budget button
Enter a title and dates for the budget. The budget dates can overlap dates for another budget, so you can have multiple budgets running at once e.g. an annual budget and a 10-year budget.
Enter any notes about the budget and click Save.
Note: If you have an existing budget that you want to rerun for the next period, you can roll the budget over instead of creating a new one. See Rolling Over a Budget.
The Budget will now be created in Draft mode. While the budget is in this status, you can add, edit or delete allocations as you wish.
Allocate items to the budget
To add allocations to the budget, click New Allocation.
- Select an Expense Account Type to assign the cost to. If an account is in use by another budget that runs over the same date range, that account will not be available for selection.
- Enter the Budgeted Cost (excl tax) for the item, which will be divided between the tenancies.
- All tenancies with a current term will be listed here. To exclude a tenancy from an allocation, simply allocate them 0% of the budgeted cost.
- There are three different ways you can allocate a portion of the budgeted cost to tenancies:
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- Percentage of Area - The system will calculate the percentage of the area the tenancy occupies of the total property area size, then use this percentage to calculate that portion of the budgeted cost to find the tenants allocation. The Total Area Size and Occupied Area will be displayed so you can easily see how the allocation amount was calculated. This option requires at least one area to exist against the property and there is an occupied area associated with the tenancy.
- Percentage of Rent - Once a percentage is entered for this option, the system will calculate that percentage of the tenants Annual Net Rent and enter that as their allocation of the budgeted cost. In order for this option to work correctly, there must be a current rent template for the tenancy.
- Fixed Percentage/Amount - You can specify a percentage of the budgeted cost or a set amount to allocate to each tenancy. If you enter a percentage, the system will calculate the amount of the budgeted cost and populate the amount field. If you enter an amount, the system will calculate the percentage of the budgeted cost and populate the percentage field. Note: If an Outgoings % has been set up against the Tenancy Details, this will be pulled through as their default allocation in a budget and their $ share based on that percentage. This can be manually edited for each allocation if required.
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- The total allocations may not necessarily add up to 100% of the budgeted cost, especially if you are using the Percentage of Rent option, in which case this amount will be displayed as Non-Recoverable.
When you are happy with the allocations for each tenancy, click Save and Add Another to create a new allocation or Save and Finish this will take you through to the budget details screen.
Budget Summary and Details
When viewing the budget details, the Summary (1) tab will show each expense type, the amount budgeted and the total % which has been allocated. Clicking on the Detail (2) tab will show the proportion of each expense / percentages (3) allocated to each tenancy and the total per tenant for the budget period.
- Edit Budget - Edit the title, dates or add a note
- Approve Budget - Proceed to the approval process once you are happy with the budget allocations
- Edit Tenancy Caps/Collars - Apply a cap or collar to any of the included tenancies
- Edit Allocations - Edit all allocations at once
- New Allocation - Create a new allocation for the budget
- Archive Budget - This will remove the budget from the system