Using Budgets with Capital Planner

A guide on how to fund Capital Projects and Asset Replacements with Budgets from the Accounting module and track spending in real time.

How it Works

The Accounting and Capital Planner modules are designed to work together to provide a complete picture of your organization's long-term finances. The relationship between budgets, projects, and assets is best understood as follows:

• A Budget is the overarching pool of money or funding source. A single budget can be used to fund multiple projects and asset replacements. For more information on creating budgets in the Accounting module, see our Budget Setup Guide.
• A Capital Project has its own Estimated Cost field to track the planned spending for that individual project.
• A Capital Asset (equipment) has a Replacement asset value used to forecast future expenditures.

When you associate a project or an asset with a budget, its planned costs will be tracked against the parent Budget's total available funds.

Associating a Budget with a Capital Project

Before You Begin: To associate a Capital Project with a budget, you must first ensure that the module has been configured correctly. Please see the Capital Planner Setup Guide for instructions on how to enable this functionality.

When creating or editing a Capital Project:

1. Locate the Budget category field and select the appropriate budget from the dropdown list.
2. Enter the total planned cost for this specific project in the Estimated Cost field.
3. Click Save.

Associating a Budget with a Capital Asset

Before You Begin: For the Budget category field to appear on an equipment item, the Track asset lifespan setting must be enabled for that item's Equipment Type. For more details, see the Capital Assets (Equipment) Setup guide.

When creating or editing a capital asset:

1. In the Asset lifespan section, locate the Budget category field and select the appropriate budget from the dropdown list.
2. Ensure the Replacement asset value field is filled out accurately.
3. Click Save.

Note on Retiring Assets: When a capital asset is retired, its Replacement asset value is removed from the budget's Upcoming amount. However, retiring an asset does not automatically create a transaction for its replacement. To account for the purchase of the new asset, you must create a manual transaction in the Accounting module. This will ensure the cost is accurately reflected in the budget's Actual amount.

Viewing the Results

You can monitor the financial status of your projects and assets from three different locations:

On the Capital Planner Dashboard

The main dashboard provides a high-level forecast of your capital spending. Budgets are integrated into this view in two ways:

• Cost Projection Chart: The Available funds from your budgets are plotted as a line on this chart, allowing you to visually compare your budgeted amounts against the projected costs from both asset replacements and capital projects over time.
• Dashboard Filter: Click the Filter button and use the Budget category dropdown to filter the entire dashboard—including the cost projection chart and the lists of assets and projects—to show only the items associated with a specific budget.

In the Capital Projects & Equipment Grids

From the main grids in both the Capital Planner and Equipment modules, you can get a high-level view of which items are assigned to which budgets.

• Displaying the Budget Column: Click the Settings button in the top right corner of the grid and select the checkbox next to Budget category to display it as a column.
• Filtering by Budget: Once the column is visible, click the Filter button. Use the Budget category dropdown to view all items associated with a specific budget, or select "None" to find items that have not yet been assigned.

In the Accounting Module

Navigate to the Accounting module and the Budgets tab to see the detailed financial impact.

• The project's Estimated Cost and the asset's Replacement asset value will be added to the budget's Upcoming amount.
• As actual costs are incurred, the Actual amount on the budget will increase, and the Remaining balance and Available balance will decrease.

This provides a real-time, comprehensive view of how your capital planning is impacting your overall budget.