Budget Items

Last updated August 26, 2026

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

Link this item to last year’s version of the same line item. Volo Cash then treats them as one category over time: you can page between years from the item’s page, its history covers every linked year, and its timing chart compares against last year. Select more than one if several of last year’s items merged into this one.

You only need to set one side of a link. Copying your budget forward sets them for you.

Continued To

The same link in the other direction of continued from: next year’s version of this item. Select more than one if this item splits into several next year.

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.

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