Budgets

NexWave extends the standard budget functionality with Budget Categories for scenario planning, explicit monthly period allocations, and enhanced variance reporting.

Overview

A budget in NexWave defines planned spending or revenue for a set of accounts against a cost centre (or project) for a fiscal year. NexWave adds three key enhancements:

• Budget Categories for managing multiple budget versions (Control, Forecast, Revised)

• Monthly period fields for explicit per-month budget allocation

• Enhanced variance reporting with category-based filtering

Budget Categories

Each budget is assigned a Budget Category that controls enforcement behaviour and enables scenario planning.

Category Fields

Default Categories

Two categories are created automatically:

You can create additional categories at any time (e.g., "Board Approved", "Q3 Revised", "Best Case").

How Enforcement Works

When a transaction is created (e.g., a Purchase Order), NexWave checks all submitted budgets matching the transaction's cost centre, fiscal year, and account:

• Stop: If spending exceeds the budget, the transaction is blocked

• Warn: If spending exceeds the budget, a warning is shown but the transaction is allowed

• Ignore: The budget is skipped entirely during validation (reporting only)

Per-Budget Action Tuning

When you select a category on a budget, the category's action is applied to all six enforcement fields:

• Annual/monthly budget exceeded on Material Request

• Annual/monthly budget exceeded on Purchase Order

• Annual/monthly budget exceeded on actual expenses

You can downgrade individual fields after the category sets them. For example, if the category is "Stop", you could change the Material Request action to "Warn" while keeping Purchase Order at "Stop". These manual changes are preserved on subsequent saves as long as the category doesn't change.

Duplicate Protection

Within the same category, you cannot create two budgets for the same cost centre + fiscal year + account. This prevents double-counting in reports and conflicting enforcement.

Across different categories, the same accounts can have different budget amounts. This is the intended behaviour for scenario planning.

Monthly Period Allocations

NexWave adds 12 explicit period fields (Period 01 through Period 12) to each budget account row, allowing you to set specific monthly budget amounts instead of relying on even distribution or monthly distribution templates.

How Periods Work

The period numbers follow the fiscal year, not the calendar year. For a fiscal year starting in April, Period 01 = April, Period 02 = May, and so on.

Period Calculation Rules

1. If period fields are filled in: The Budget Amount (total) is automatically calculated as the sum of all 12 periods

2. If only the total is entered (all periods empty, no monthly distribution selected): The total is distributed evenly across all 12 periods, with any rounding remainder assigned to Period 12

3. If a Monthly Distribution template is selected: The template percentages are used instead (standard behaviour)

Bulk Editing

The budget accounts table supports bulk editing. You can use the Download and Upload buttons to export the accounts to a spreadsheet, fill in period amounts, and import them back.

Budget Labels

Each budget has an optional Budget Label for easy identification in list views and link fields. If left empty, it is auto-generated as:

{Category} - {Cost Centre/Project} - {Fiscal Year}

For example: "Control - Main - AK - 2025-2026"

You can override this with a custom name like "Q1 2026 Operations Budget". The label is displayed as the primary identifier in list views and link field dropdowns, with the system-generated budget ID shown alongside.

Common Process Flows

Creating a Budget

1. Go to Accounting > Budget > New Budget

2. Select Budget Category (e.g., "Control")

3. Set the Cost Centre (or Project), Fiscal Year, and Company

4. Add account rows with either:

   • Individual period amounts (Period 01 through Period 12), or

   • A total Budget Amount (which will be distributed evenly)

5. The Budget Label is auto-generated. Edit it if you want a custom name.

6. Submit the budget

Mid-Year Budget Revision

When the board approves revised numbers mid-year:

1. Create a new category (e.g., "FY2026 Revised") with action Stop

2. Change the old category's action from Stop to Ignore (the old budget remains for reporting but no longer blocks transactions)

3. Create new budgets under "FY2026 Revised" with the updated amounts

4. The old budgets remain available for comparison in the variance report

Comparing Budget Scenarios

1. Go to Accounting > Period-wise Budget Variance Report

2. Select the Budget Category to view

3. The report shows budget vs actual for all budgets in that category

4. Switch between categories to compare different scenarios (e.g., original vs revised)

Importing Budgets

Budget data can be imported using NexWave's Data Import tool:

1. Go to Settings > Data Import > New

2. Select Budget as the doctype

3. Download the template, fill in the budget details including:

   • Budget Category, Cost Centre, Fiscal Year, Company

   • Account rows with period amounts or totals

4. Upload and import

Period-wise Budget Variance Report

The enhanced variance report compares budgeted amounts against actual GL entries for a selected budget category.

Report Filters

How the Report Uses Period Fields

The report reads the explicit period fields (Period 01 through Period 12) for each budget account. If period fields are empty, it falls back to the Monthly Distribution template percentages, or even distribution if no template is set.

Variance is calculated as: Budget - Actual

• Positive variance (green): under budget

• Negative variance (red): over budget

Related Documentation

• NexWave Budget - The recommended multi-dimension budgeting module

• Accounting - Financial management overview

• Intercompany Elimination - Intercompany elimination entries