Budget Revision Instructions (also appropriate for Budget Requests) Excel format: All Budget Revisions are done electronically. Paper copies will not be handled. Anyone can start a Budget Revision by accessing the appropriate file and filling in the required information. The file should then be saved on the persons H:, P:, or C:, with a name that will be meaningful. Then, an e-mail should be addressed to the first of the Secondary Responsibilities who need to approve the revision, and the revision file should be attached to this e-mail. The recipient opens the e-mail, opens the attached file, and reviews the information. Discussion should occur, and changes made as necessary. When ready to approve, the person types his/her name and date onto the appropriate line in the form, and saves the excel file. The e-mail is then forwarded to the next person in line for approval. The e-mail must be FORWARDED, in order to continue the attachment. A Reply to the person who sent the attachment will cause the attachment to be lost. All Secondary and Primary Responsibilities must approve the Budget Revision, so it must be Forwarded (one by one) to all required. The last recipient should Forward the attachment to the Director of Accounting Services. Excel allows you to use formulas to add up the changes, and compute the ending balances. Please take advantage of the calculation functionality. Make sure you have the right form for the right year. A 2007-08 revision must be submitted on a Budget Revision Form 2007-08. If this is a change for the new fiscal year preparation (prior to the Approved Version) then you should use a Budget Request form instead. The change may be needed for the current year and the new year, in which case, you must submit a Budget Revision form for the current year, and decide whether a Budget Request or Budget Revision form is necessary for the new year (if the new year budget has been Approved, then use the Budget Revision for the new year). All versions that are allowed will be available on the K: or on the Accounting Services web site. It is not expected that you will need to modify any form to replace one year with the next. Also, if the Budget Request form for a given year is not officially “available”, that means that Budget Requests are not being accepted at that time, and a Budget Revision form should be used (or changes for a future year just can’t be made yet). Use as much space as necessary for the Justification of what you are doing. Remember, this may be very important in six months when you need to understand what changes happened and why. Make the words or numbers that you use meaningful. It is very easy on the Excel format to use numbers and formulas to help illustrate what you are doing. In Excel, do not type past Column G, or else it will cause ugly two page printing. Fill up the line, and then move to the next line for more needed text. You can add or delete lines as needed for the Justification. Do not change the width of any columns, but you may change the height of any line, or add lines to make the form as long as needed. Use as many lines as needed for the accounts that are being changed. If all lines are in the same area, you can use the first line to indicate the area (ex: Accounting Services), then use subsequent lines for the 1
account titles (ex: Travel, Supplies – Office). Otherwise, please indicate the Account Titles as follows: Accounting Travel, Accounting Supplies – Office, Business Services Travel, etc. Add or delete lines as needed. Include the entire account number: XX (Fund) XXXXX (Function) XXXX (Object) in your revision. The entire account number is necessary to make a change in the budget for that account number. Type the Fund in the Fund column, the Function in the Function column, and the Object in the Object column. Do not alter the column widths on any columns. This form is designed for one-page width, and any increase in column width will cause it to spill over to two pages to print all columns, which is not pretty. Enter the current budget balance for each account being affected. Show the balance as it appears in Budget Review: i.e. revenue accounts (object = 4XXX) normally have minus signs (-). Show the revenue accounts on the Budget Review in brackets, ex: (500). Expense accounts (object = 6XXX) normally are positive, ex: 500. Do not use $ and do not use decimals. Budget amounts are always in whole dollars. Increases in revenue should be shown in brackets, as should decreases in expense. Decreases in revenue or increases in expense should be shown as positive amounts. Include a grand total for the Increase/(Decrease) column. This will represent the net change. If the net change is 0, then the revision is Neutral, and only needs to be approved by the Secondary and Primary Responsibilities. If the net change is a positive or a negative amount, then the revision is Non-Neutral. Non-Neutral revisions adversely affecting the bottom line must go from Vice President to Executive Council for approvals. Calculate the New Budget amount and include the balance in the form (use formulas in Excel to do this calculation for you). In some cases, you may know the New Budget figure, so what needs to be calculated is the Increase/(Decrease) amount. Use formulas in Excel to help keep the amounts correct. The approvals on Budget Revisions must include all Secondary and Primary Responsibilities. Executive Council must approve any non-neutral revisions that are taking resources away from the budget. Names and dates should be typed into the appropriate box to show approval and a date entered also. The box with “Revision #” is for Accounting Services use, and will be filled out during the Accounting approval process. After the Director of Accounting Services processes and approves the revision, a copy of the approved revision will be e-mailed to all Secondary and Primary Responsibilities, showing the BR # assigned and the date that it will be keyed into the system by Accounting Services. If you don’t know how to do formulas or other Excel functions, contact the Director of Accounting Services, who would be glad to walk you through it. Or, contact an STA+ student for some Excel training.
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