Budget Items

Required Fields

Name

The official name for this budget item as it will appear on expense forms and reports (e.g., “Staff Appreciation,” “Science Fair Supplies”).

Budgeted Amount

The total dollar amount allocated for this item in the current fiscal year. As expenses are submitted against this item, the remaining balance updates in real time.

Expense / Income

Choose whether this item tracks money going out (Expense) or money coming in (Income). Income items cannot have pre-approvers assigned.

Item Type

Categorizes the budget item for reporting purposes:

  • No type — uncategorized
  • Administration — general operational costs
  • Fundraisers — fundraising activities
  • Programs — enrichment and educational programs
  • Pass through — funds that pass through your organization to another entity

Fiscal Year

The fiscal year this budget item belongs to. Budget items are scoped to a single fiscal year; when a new year starts, you create new items (or import them).

Optional Fields

Description

A longer explanation of what the budget is used for. This can be used to help submitters find the right budget item. E.g. “Auction Event Expense” may have a description of “Auction DJ, photo booth, table decorations, bartender fees” would help someone who knows they paid the DJ to show up at the auction, but doesn’t know if that’s an Auction Event Expense or Auction Other Expense.

Descriptions can also be useful as documentation for future treasurers. An expense like, “Installlation Expense” could have a description reading, “Printed materials to hand out to the incoming board, food and drinks for the board transition event.”

Private

When enabled, this budget item is only visible to logged-in users and will not appear on the public submission form. Useful for internal-only categories.

Budget Group

Assign the item to a Budget Group to organize related items together. Groups can be assigned a pre-approver to assign a role to manage multiple budget items.

Continued From

If this item carries over from the previous fiscal year, link it to last year’s version. This creates a historical chain so you can track spending across years on the same line item.

Pre-Approver(s)

Select one or more pre-approve Sign Rules that must review expenses for this budget item before they go to the main approval stage.

If a pre-approver is also set at the budget group level, the item-level setting takes priority.