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User Guide

Council Budget Tool

Lets your council plan income and expenses for the Columbian Year and track actual spending against that plan automatically.

Who uses it
Financial Secretary (creates and edits the budget); the Treasurer can enter actuals.
Where
Finance → Council Budget

When to use it

Set up a budget at the start of the Columbian Year (July 1) to prepare for the annual audit and keep council finances transparent for the Trustees and members. Once a budget exists, actuals flow in on their own from paid vouchers, dues payments, and categorized bank transactions, so you can watch planned-vs-actual all year without re-keying numbers. Budgeting takes about 10 minutes to set up.

Step by step

  1. Go to Finance → Council Budget. If the budget feature isn't visible, ask your super-admin to enable it (budgetEnabled feature flag).
  2. If no budget exists yet, you'll see a setup card. Click Create Budget to start from the default template, or — if last year's budget exists — Clone from {prior year} to copy it forward.
  3. Expand a category to see its line items. Click into a line item's planned amount to enter what you expect to spend or earn for the year.
  4. Use Add line item within a category, or add a new category, to match how your council tracks money.
  5. Watch the summary card at the top for Income, Expenses, and Net (planned vs. actual). The ACTUAL column updates as money moves.
  6. To record a one-off actual by hand, open a line item and enter an actual entry (FS or Treasurer). For everything tracked elsewhere, let the auto-feeds do the work.
  7. If bank transactions have been categorized to budget lines but not yet counted, a banner shows how many are waiting. Click Apply all (or apply a single line item's suggestions) to pull them into your actuals.
  8. When the plan is final, use the lock toggle next to the title to freeze it. Changes after lock are recorded in the budget amendment log with a reason.

Tips & gotchas

  • Actuals auto-feed from three sources: paid vouchers, dues/obligation payments, and categorized bank transactions — you rarely enter actuals by hand.
  • The budget is scoped to the Columbian Year (Jul 1 – Jun 30). Use the year context bar to view a different year; each year has its own budget.
  • Only the Financial Secretary can create or edit the budget structure and planned amounts. The Treasurer can enter actuals but not restructure.
  • Bank-transaction suggestions are suggest-only — nothing lands in actuals until you click Apply.
  • Locking doesn't prevent amendments; it just forces a reason and logs every change for the audit trail.

Related

Looking for something else? Browse all guides or see the full feature list.