Budget transfers allow you to either import a new budget or adjust an existing budget.
Integrate with your estimating software by importing estimates directly into Abio. The budgeted hours and costs for each cost centre are updated with the estimated hours and costs from your import spreadsheet. Forecasting will then use the budget rates as a starting point to determine how close your actual costs are to your budgeted costs.
As you monitor your budget forecasts, it may become apparent that some cost centres are progressing well and coming in under budget, while others are exceeding their budgets. You may wish to massage your budgets to accurately reflect how work is progressing on the job as a whole.
Or, it might be that you’ve encountered problems in some areas that require more work than originally anticipated.
Abio’s budget transfer utility allows you to update the budget hours and dollars on job cost centres. To record a budget transfer, navigate to [e] Job Costing, then [m] Budget Transfer Entry.
The list displays your current budget transfers.
Click on the details tab to add new budget transfers.
You can add each transfer manually, using the Add, Change, Delete actions:
Budget Transfer Fields
Transfer Details
transfer no
key field, system generated, next available transfer number in sequence.
transfer item
key field, system generated, next available item number in sequence.
date
key field, YYYY.MM.DD format, defaults to the current date. During the ‘A’dd action the date may be modified to a date within the last year or next 30 days.
reason
up to 35 characters, when the transfer has been entered through the i’M’port action and the reason column on the spreadsheet is blank the system will insert “IMPORT FROM area name”.
budget type
one of ‘C’urrent or ‘Original’
job/area/centre
the centre to apply this budget transfer to
centre updated
must be one of ‘Y’es – transfer entry has been applied or ‘N’o.
Centre Detail
You can add new cost centres with this utility. Describe them here.
description
required for new centres.
client P/O code (client code)
P/O number, this field will be automatically populated by the system from the Centre Entry record if applicable.
Construction Work Package
may be blank.
cost type
must be one of ‘L’abour, ‘M’aterial, ‘E’quipment or ‘S’ubcontract, this field will default to the first cost type entered in the Centre Entry.
client item
this p/o is taken from the client purchase order – this field will automatically be populated by the system from the Centre Entry record if applicable.
Add to Centre Budget
hours
numeric to 2 decimal places, this field is only applicable to cost type ‘L’abour.
quantity
may be entered manually, populated from Purchase Orders or spreadsheet.
unit
may be entered manually, populated from Purchase Orders or spreadsheet.
cost
may be entered manually, populated from Purchase Orders or spreadsheet.
Create a Template for Importing Budget Transfers
If you are working on a large project, it is more likely that a project manager will create a spreadsheet of budget transfers. To initiate this process, Abio provides a template function. Click on the ‘Create Template…’ button to select a range of cost centres to add budget transfers for.
Abio will prompt you to select a range of centres.
There are two styles of budget transfer:
- Adjustment – This style moves costs between jobs and/or centres
- Direct – this style resets budget amounts for all centres in a job/area. This style of template is a very detailed spreadsheet that allows you to specify exactly how the new budget amounts should be applied. You can use this style to set up your initial budget entries.
Select the style of transfer and the centres to seed your template with. Abio will prompt you for a name to save your template spreadsheet under.
When you export the template, an instance of excel will display on your taskbar. Click on it to review the template. You can now make any changes you wish.
Importing a Set of Budget Transfers
To import your changes select the “Import…” button.
You will be prompted to select a job and a style of import. Adjustments include the area to adjust so you can’t select a transfer area. You can select an area to apply Direct budget transfers to.
Lastly, you can select which type of budget to modify.
When you load the file, you may encounter some errors. You can fix them in your spreadsheet and then reload them.
When the import is correct, select the ‘Apply’ button. The budget transfers will be updated to the Abio database.
Update Centres
Direct-style budget transfers are immediately applied to the centres. Adjustment-style budget transfers and manually entered budget transfers aren’t recorded on their cost centres until you initiate the ‘Update Centres…’
You can choose to update all the centres for a set of transfers, or for a job. You first review how the transfers will affect the centres:
Then you ‘Update’.
Abio updates the centres and recalculates the budget forecast, based on the progress to date and the budgets you’ve updated.