Creating a Project Budget Plan

There are two types of budget plan, a Project Budget Plan, and a Portfolio Budget Plan. Use the appropriate workspace to create a budget plan for either a project or portfolio budget. To create a Portfolio Budget Plan, refer to Creating a Portfolio Budget Plan.

This workspace is available to the following roles:

•Portfolio Manager

•Project Manager

•Demand Manager

To create a Project Budget Plan:

1.Log into the Service Desk console.

2.Open the Project Budget Plan workspace.

3.Click New Project Budget.

4.Enter the information into the Overview section and tabs listed below.

5.When completed, click Save,

This is the main section where you enter basic details for the project budget.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Name* Enter a unique name for the budget plan, such as Sales and Marketing.

Portfolio Budget

Leave this field blank if the budget is not linked to a portfolio budget. If you link this budget to a Portfolio Budget Plan, the portfolio budget it is linked to becomes the master budget, and is added under the Master Budget Plan tab.
Owner Name of the owner. The default owner is the creator of the record. You need to add an owner to enable approvals.

Status

Select the status for the budget plan from the drop-down list - Pending Approval, Under Review, Withdrawn, Committed or Retired.

 

•When a budget plan is created, the Status field is automatically set to Draft.

•When a budget plan is submitted for approval, the Status field is automatically set to Pending Approval, and all the budget plan fields are locked.

•When a budget plan is approved, the Status field is automatically set to Approved.

•When a budget plan Status field is set to Approved, Withdrawn or Committed, only the Status field remains editable, all other fields are locked.

•When a budget plan Status field is set to Retired, all the budget plan fields are locked.

Start Date*

Enter the start date for the budget plan.

End Date*

Enter the end date for the budget plan.
Budget Type*

Type of budget. Can be Service, Entity, Project or Other. For a project budget, typically select Project.
Service*

Type of service to be budgeted, such as Mobile Communication.

This field is only enabled when the Service budget type is selected.
Entity*

The organizational unit or entity to budget, such as Sales and Marketing.

This field is only enabled when the Entity budget type is selected.

1.Click the Details tab.

2.Enter information into the fields.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Fiscal Year Enter the fiscal year for the budget.

Approval Due Date

Select the due date for approving the budget.

Cost Type

Select the cost type for the budget, Capital Expense, Operational Expense or Uncategorized Expense.
Planned Amount* The total expense planned for the budget.
Budget Buffer The buffer amount for the budget. This is typically money you do not intend to use, and is intended to provide a cushion for your budget.
Budgeted Amount This field is populated by a triggered action on the Budget Item object, and also takes into account the Budget Buffer value. The value in this field changes when Cost Items and Budget Items are added to the Project Budget Plan.
Remaining Budget The remaining funds in the budget. This field value is calculated by subtracting the Allocated Budget and Consumed Budget values in the Portfolio from the Planned Amount value.

3.Click Save.

1.Click New Budget Item.

2.Enter information into the fields.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Name* A unique, descriptive name for the budget item.
Description A description of the budget item.
Price List Item Type of price list item for the budget.
Cost Driver Type of cost driver that is automatically entered by the system based on the selected price list item. If the price list item is empty, you can manually enter a number.
Unit Cost* Cost of the unit. The default currency is USD.
Unit of Measure Unit of measure such as user, feet, or each.
Usage* The number of units to purchase or the number of hours used.
Budget Automatically calculated by the system based on the unit cost multiplied by the usage number. When this item is calculated, the total amounts in the budget and master budget plans are updated.

Budget Start Date

Start date for the budget item.

Budget End Date

End date for the budget item.

If the budget is created from the master budget, these dates are automatically entered by the system. However, you can enter dates for your budget.

These dates have constraints. The start date cannot be earlier than the budget start date and the end date cannot be later than the budget end date.

Cost Type

Select the cost type, Capital Expense or Operational Expense.

3.Click Save.

1.Click New Budget Requirement.

2.Enter information into the fields. .

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Status Status of the budget requirement.
Name* A unique name for the requirement.
Description A brief description of the requirement.
Contact* A contact name.
Entity

Type of entity that is automatically entered based on the selected contact.

3.Click Save.

If you have selected a Portfolio Budget Plan in the Portfolio Budget field in the Overview section, the basic details of the Portfolio Budget Plan are displayed in this tab.

You can edit the displayed fields if required, or click Go to to open the Portfolio Budget Plan record if you want to edit fields that are not displayed in this tab.

Refer to Creating a Portfolio Budget Plan for more detailed information on Portfolio Budget Plans.

To edit the tab fields:

1.Select the Master Budget Plan tab.

2.Edit the displayed fields as required.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Name* A unique name for the master budget, for example, Portfolio Budget FY2015.
Budget Policy A general statement about the budget policy.
Status Status of the budget plan. The default status is Draft and changes automatically as the plan goes through the approval workflow.
Owner* Name of the owner. The default owner is the creator of the record.

Start Date*

The start date of the budget plan, typically the first day of the fiscal year.

End Date*

The end date of the budget plan, typically the last day of the fiscal year.

Approval Due Date

The latest date when the budget approval is due.

Planned Amount

The total expense planned for the budget. This includes all planned amounts for project budgets associated with this budget.

3.Click Save (at the top of the page).

1.Open an incident, service request, or configuration item record, and then select the Cost Item tab.

2.Click New Cost Item.

3.Enter information into the fields.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Field Description
Description* A description of the item. This can be a unique name for the item.
Product Catalog Item Select the product catalog item. To add an item not on the list, refer to Adding a New Price List Item.

Budget

Select the budget that you want to charge this item to.

Cost Driver

Select the cost driver. To add an item not on the list, refer to Creating a Cost Driver.

Vendor

Select the vendor from the drop-down list.

Notes

Enter any relevant notes applicable to the cost item.

Recurrence Type

Select a recurrence type from the drop-down list if applicable - Monthly or Yearly.
Unit Cost* Cost of each unit.
Qty* The number of units.
Unit of Measure The type of measurement of each unit.
Total Cost Total cost calculated by Unit Cost x Qty.
Cost Type Select if the cost type - Capital Expense or Operational Expense.

4.Click Save.

The Approvals tab displays all approvals that are submitted for the budget plan.

The Approvals tab is only displayed when a Project Budget Plan is submitted for approval.

Field Description
Name Name of the approval.
Owner Owner of the approval.
Status Current status of the approval.
Approval Status Updated By The person that last updated the approval.
Approval Status Updated Date Time Date and time that the approval was last updated.

Important Information on Approvals

If the budget is for a Demand, and is more than $1 million, it must also be approved by an executive approval group (refer to Executive Approval Committee).

When submitting a project budget plan for approval you need to consider some aspects of your project configuration that may affect the behavior of the approvals process.

•If a project is aligned to portfolios or programs, the approval is sent to the project sponsor.

•If a project is not aligned to portfolios or programs, the approval is sent to the project owner.

•If a budget is created that is linked to a project that does not have a sponsor or owner, when it is submitted for approval, no approval item is created, and the budget status workflow is moved to Under Review. The budget Status field may initially be displayed as Pending Approval, however on refreshing the record, the Status field is shown with its value as Under Review.

Working with Approvals

To submit a Project Budget Plan for approval:

Approvals can only be submitted when a Project Budget Plan status is Draft or Under Review.

1.Open the Project Budget Plan workspace.

2.Double-click the project plan you want to approve to open the record.

3.Click Submit For Approval.

To add a new approval:

1.Click New Approval.

2.Enter information into the fields.
Refer to Working with Approvals for information on the form fields.

3.Click Save.

To edit and existing approval:

1.Double-click the approval entry.

2.Edit the fields as required.
Refer to Working with Approvals for information on the form fields.

3.Click Save.

Approve or deny a budget approval request:

You can approve or deny a budget approval by navigating to the approval in the Approvals workspace and opening it.

1.Open the Approvals workspace, select the approval, and then double-click.

2.Select the Approval Vote Tracking tab.

3.Click Approve to approve the budget, or click Deny to deny the approval

Use the Activity History tab to manage communication and investigation actions associated with the Project Budget Plan. The Journal business object displays and manages notes and email messages linked to the parent business object.

If the Activity History tab is not displayed, click the Restore hidden tabs icon and select the tab from the list.

Emails and notes are automatically added to the Activity History list. You can also manually add an item to the activity history for further documentation of a business object.

To manually add an activity history item, refer to Creating an Activity History Item.

You can attach files, images, or add URL's to Project Budget Plans, enabling users to access additional data not limited by the defined fields.

If the Attachment tab is not displayed, click the Restore hidden tabs icon and select the tab from the list.

To add an attachment or URL, refer to Adding an Attachment.

Lists audit details associated with the Project Budget Plan.

If the Audit tab is not displayed, click the Restore hidden tabs icon and select the tab from the list.

The Audit tab displays the following information.

Field Description
Date Date when the budget plan was created.
User Name of the person who created the budget plan.
Event Type Type of event.
Description A summary of the budget plan type.

Linking a Project Budget Plan to the Master (Portfolio) Budget

After you have created a Project Budget Plan, you can link it to the Portfolio Budget Plan.

1.Log in to the Service Desk console.

2.Open the Portfolio Budget Plan workspace.

3.Open the Portfolio Budget Plan from which you want to link a Project Budget Plan.

4.Select the Project Budgets tab, and then click the link button .
The project budgets are displayed.

5.Choose the project budget you want to link, and then click Select.
The Project Budget Plan is added to the Project Budgets tab list.