Once the case accounting structure is defined you can begin to create budgets. Budgets can be created for many purposes including

1. Tracking internal costs
2. Tracking estimated settlements or awards for dispute matters (often termed Reserves)
3. Tracking Completion statements for asset transactions such as Real Estate
4. Tracking external budgets costs such as JCode court cost reporting.

Budgets are managed via the Budgets Global feature found under the finance section

From here you can

1. Manage you existing budget definitions or create new ones
2. Specify the budgets that are available to each of your work types
3. Define the phase model that your budgets follow

BUDGET PHASES AND SNAPSHOTS

Prior to Finance V2.0 we would often see budgets configured as follows

1. Different columns were added to Initial, Final, and so on to represent different “snapshots” of the budget over time.
2. Different budgets were configured for Current versus Settlement to represent the various stages of a budget.

In V2.0 we have consolidated this configuration around the concept of budget phases and snapshots.

Budget phases represent the lifecycle of a budget. For example, a budget may be in draft and then progress through its lifecycle until it is settled.

You define Budget Phase plans through the Global Feature -> Budgets by clicking on this nav link

This will show a list of the Budget Phase plans that are available.

You can either edit an existing phase plan or create a new one. When configuring a budget phase

 you can specify several display settings together with

The budget phases available together with the history will then appear on the main budget views

Every time a budget progresses through a phase a snapshot of the budget values at that point in time are taken. These snapshots can either be visualised side by side with the main budget by clicking on the  icon in the screen above or else they are visualised via the Radar – Budget Summary widget as vertical lines.

Whilst snapshots are always taken when a budget changes phase you can also (optionally) allow users to take them whenever they wish. This is configured via the following setting on the main budget configuration panel.

Clicking this will enable the Snapshot function on the main budget toolbar through which the user can specify a name for their snapshot.

BUDGET POSITIONS

Prior to Finance V2.0 Budgets had a fixed number of columns for such as Initial, Highest, Current or Settled. In Finance V2.0 we now have the ability to create any number of Positions (Columns) for you to capture on your budgets.

On the Global Feature ->Budgets click on the Budget Positions nav bar

This will open the following screen

As part of your Finance V2.0 upgrade your existing columns will be migrated to Positions however you are free to create additional budget positions.

For further information on how to configure budget positions please see Configuring Budget Positions including calculated fields‍ 

CREATING NEW BUDGET STRUCTURES

To create a new budget, click the “+” button on the BUDGET STRUCTURES blade

This will show the available budget structure types which are as follows

1. Awards – use this type for specify budgets based on the Awards of Damages; typically used by Claimant Matters
2. Costs – use this type to specify budgets which track your costs on a Matter or other Matter
3. Real Estate – user this type to specify Completion Statement and other real estate budgets.
4. Reserves – use this type to specify budgets which track damages liabilities; typically used on Defendant Matters

NOTE: The Budget structure type determines both display settings and the available functionality for a given budget and should be chosen carefully.

Once you have chosen your budget structure type you will be presented with the following screen

This breaks the configuration of the budget into the following sections

• Details – enables you to specify the name and other display settings for the budget
• Account Settings – specifies the chart of account segment that this budget us based upon
• Budget Change Reasons – specifies the circumstances in which the end user must specify a reason when changing a budget
• Budget Permissions – specifies the permissions that are required to read or update this budget
• Budget Phases – specifies the phase model that this budget will use
• Display Settings – specifies the columns and other data capture that are used for a budget
• Account Settings – specifies the account codes that are used on this budget

ACCOUNT SETTINGS

The Account settings enable you to specify the Accounting Segment that your budget will be based upon.

If the Segment is hierarchical (as defined in your chart of accounts configuration) then it will optionally allow you to select a roll-up segment. This roll-up will then be shown in the end user budget screen together with the code segment.

BUDGET CHANGE REASONS

Through this section you can specify the circumstances in which your end users must specify a reason together with the relevant optionset for the reason codes.

The available Change Reason Behaviours are as follows

1. Always – whenever a change is made to a budget a reason must be specified
2. Never – a reason will never be requested
3. After initial budget – a reason will only be required after the first budget entry is recorded
4. Percentage Threshold –a reason will only be required if the budget changes by a specific percentage amount.

BUDGET PERMISSIONS

Use this section to specify the global permissions that are required to read or edit this budget structure.

By default, your budgets will be configured to use the two permissions of Finance – Budgets – Read and Finance – Budgets – Edit but this can be overridden if required.

BUDGET PHASES

Use this section to specify the phase model that your budget will use. Choose this carefully as once the budget is in use this cannot be changed.

In addition, you can also specify whether your users can take ad-hoc snapshots – for further details please see BUDGET PHASES AND SNAPSHOTS

DISPLAY SETTINGS

By clicking on the Display settings Nav bar at the bottom of the Budget Structure configuration panel

You will open the display settings dialog. Through this panel you can

1. Add additional data capture to your Budgets screens by adding Aspects to the Header
   
2. Add additional positions to your budget which then display as columns on your budget structure
   

When adding a new position to your budget structure you can optionally choose to override its name for display purposes. In addition for calculated fields you can also choose to configure the calculation. For further details please see Configuring Budget Positions and Display Settings‍ 

Finally you can drag and drop the positions to change their display order.

ACCOUNT SETTINGS

By clicking on the Account settings Nav bar at the bottom of the Budget Structure configuration panel

You will open the account settings dialog. This panel will allow you to configure the codes for your budget structure based on the primary segment you have configured for this budget together with any rollup segments.

The screen is broken up into two areas reflecting your

1. Primary Budget Accounts
   
2. Information Only Budget Accounts – explain further
   

In either section you can choose to

1. Add additional segment codes via the  button
2. Specify whether the code will appear on the budget form by default or will be placed behind a more button
   
3. Remove or de-active budget segments

ADDING YOUR BUDGET STRUCTURES TO WORK ITEMS AND MENUS

For a given work type (e.g. a Matter) you will need to specify what budget structures it uses. Within the Budgets global feature under sub features open the following

This will show your work type hierarchy

Click on the enabled flag to enable budgets for this work type and then specify the Budget Structures that you require.

If you are using non overridden finance menus and your user has the correct permissions for your budget structure, then these budgets will be available under the Finance menu and will be grouped according to the Budget Structure type e.g. Awards.

If you have overridden your menus, then you can configure your menus in two different ways

1. Add a Budgets command to your menus – enabling you to specify an individual budget structure menu option
   
2. Add a Budgets menu provider to your menus – in which case the system will add a menu entry for each of your configured budget structures to the menu.
   
   NOTE: We would typically recommend this approach as it is more dynamic.

CONFIGURING BUDGETS ON YOUR PORTAL PAGES

There are several new portal widgets available in Finance V2.0 to enable you to customise your budget display

These include the following

1. Budget Analytics – this shows a graphic view of changes to your budget over time.
2. Add a Budgets menu provider to your menus – in which case the system will add a menu entry for each of your configured budget structures to the menu.

These are described in detail in the following article Configuring the display of budgets on your portals‍ 

DATA COMPOSER FOR BUDGETS

Any of the data that is entered into your budgets is queryable via data composer for inclusion into business rules or documents. For further details please see Using Data composer with budgets‍