Encourage Fiscal Accountability With The Budget Module

While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 applies only to publicly traded companies, it served as a wake-up call to all organizations. For nonprofit organizations, it is particularly important to ensure funds donated are used according to the contributors’ wishes. An excellent way to effectively track and report expenditures is by using the Sage MIP Fund Accounting Budget module.

The Budget module interfaces with other modules to provide full control of and visibility into budget expenditures. Proactive planning of expenditures allows you to make the best possible use of grants and other income sources. Let’s take a closer look.

Flexible Budget Creation
You can encourage financial accountability throughout the organization by giving budget responsibility to individuals at many levels. Budgets can be created at the grant, program, department, or project level, or any combination thereof. Using the Advanced Security module, you can allow managers to build budgets while viewing only the accounts within their responsibility. For grant-based budgets, you can cross fiscal years to match the grant year.

Managing several budgets, and rolling them up into the top-level budget, is simplified with the use of Executive View Licensing (see more about Executive View Licensing below). This module allows managers to submit proposed departmental budgets directly into the system for review. You can then consolidate the submitted worksheets for organization-wide review and adoption.

Expedited Budget Entry
A wide variety of options for entering budgets makes this sometimes burdensome task quick and easy. The Budget Worksheet features a familiar spreadsheet-like user interface. You can create formulas and cut, copy, and paste just like a spreadsheet. If you have budget information in Excel, you easily can copy data between your spreadsheet and the Budget Worksheet.

Rather than enter budgets individually, you can get a jump start by generating worksheets automatically based on the previous year’s actual results or budget. Once your budget is populated, you can then make global changes such as increasing the budget by a percentage or spreading a fixed-dollar increase across budgeted accounts.

A third option is to import a budget developed externally using the Data Import/Export module. Even if you plan to continue to use your external budgeting tool, this option allows you to take advantage of the built-in spending controls provided by the Budget module.

Robust Budget Controls
Once budgets are built, several tools are available to prevent cost overruns. At the highest level, a single mouse click allows you to check for available budget during transaction entry. You can choose the level of compliance to enforce, whether simply an over-budget warning message or actual prevention of entries that would result in an over-budget situation. Within the Purchase Order module, you can check for available budget before issuing a purchase order. If you use Electronic Requisitions, managers can check available budget before approving requisitions.

The Encumbrance module works with the Budget module as well. Encumbered funds are factored into a budget checking inquiry, and even include pre-encumbrances generated by approved requisitions from the Electronic Requisitions module.

Reporting And Analysis
One of the biggest benefits you gain from budgeting may be the ability to use budget information to forecast future financial position and to produce what-if analysis. The Budget module provides you with information for smarter decision-making, including:

• Built-in reporting tools that allow you to easily track and report on government grant performance according to requirements.
• The ability to include encumbrance figures to provide highly accurate views of your true budgetary position.
• Comparative statements illustrating budget-to-actual position which can be produced at every budget level, including programs, grants, departments, and projects.

Security And Control
While you want to empower staff with budget responsibility, it’s also essential that the security of sensitive data is retained. The Advanced Security module allows you to control entry, viewing, and reporting access at the same levels as budget entry. You simply select the account level at which to enforce security, then assign permissions at the individual or group level.

Organizations that have distributed budget responsibility find that they gain better financial control because the budget owners take the responsibility seriously and research expenditures carefully to make the best possible use of available funds.

The Budget module can be a powerful tool in creating a fiscally responsible organization and encouraging financial accountability at all levels.

Give Blytheco a call at 800.425.9843 for more information about the Budget module today!

Now available: Executive View Licensing for MIP Fund Accounting!

Give your executives, key directors, and board members access to financial reporting, graphs, and the real-time data they need with Executive View Licensing. This special license provides the ability for executives to collaborate in the budget preparation process and frees your accounting staff from running and distributing specialized reports - all without the cost of purchasing full software seats.

Contact Blytheco today for more information about Executive View Licensing! Give us a call at 800.425.9843, extension 192, visit our website at www.blytheco.com, or e-mail us at solutions@blytheco.com.

Contact Blytheco at solutions@blytheco.com or 800-4BLYTHE for more information or with any questions.