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Budgets are set against accounts and cost centres, for a period. Actuals come from the ledger continuously, so variance is current rather than as-at-last-report.
Cost centres follow the structure Nest holds, so departmental reporting does not need a separate mapping table.
Because the budget lives in a spreadsheet and actuals live in the ledger, and someone joins them after the close. By the time a department sees its variance, the month it relates to is over.
Budget holders then manage on instinct for four weeks and react afterwards, which is not what a budget is for.
A budget holder sees overspend while there is still a month left to do something about it.
Committed spend from purchasing can be included, so a department that has ordered but not been billed sees the commitment rather than a comfortable-looking number.
It does not do scenario planning, rolling forecasts or driver-based modelling. It compares a budget you set against actuals as they arrive.
It also will not stop spending. Budgets report; approval thresholds in purchasing control.
Keep cost centres to the number finance actually reports on. A structure with more centres than reports will not be maintained past the first quarter.
Set budgets at the level decisions are made. A budget nobody owns is a number, not a control.
The ledger for actuals, purchasing for commitments, Nest for the cost centre structure. Where a cost centre maps to a team, the budget can be reported by team without anybody maintaining the correspondence.
Budgets are set against accounts and cost centres, for a period. Actuals come from the ledger continuously, so variance is current rather than as-at-last-report.
A budget holder sees overspend while there is still a month left to do something about it.
It does not do scenario planning, rolling forecasts or driver-based modelling. It compares a budget you set against actuals as they arrive.
Keep cost centres to the number finance actually reports on. A structure with more centres than reports will not be maintained past the first quarter.
Fourteen days, every module, no card. Or half an hour with someone who will run it on your own records and tell you where it does not help.