Page Comparison

This page covers:

Budgets & Financials Structure

Budgets & Financials (Forecasts or Planned Costs) enable organizations to plan expenditure across categories, periods, activities, or other segments, as well as report actual expenditure. A Budget in Amp Impact essentially consists of two parts:

Here is a screenshot of what an individual Budget with related Financial records looks like:

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The Budgeting Process

The budgeting process varies by organization and Amp Impact allows organizations to tackle the planning stage in two ways:

1. Create one or multiple Budgets and the related Financial records directly in Amp Impact: This is helpful when an organization just needs to create or modify a single Budget and users are comfortable navigating the Budget and Financials structure directly in Amp Impact.

2. Use the Excel templates. More often than not, users are accustomed to managing budgets in Excel and find the interface and experience easier than trying to create line items one by one in Amp Impact. Amp Impact offers two Excel template versions:

   1. Basic Excel Upload/Download template: The Excel Upload/Download feature allows you to download Budget and Line Item records to an Excel sheet, make changes offline, and re-upload the templates.

   2. Enhanced Excel planning and reporting templates: These two templates enable more advanced and user-friendly Financial management in Excel. By activating and using the Enhanced Excel templates, users can download the Budget structure, plan their budget for multiple time periods with ease, and finally report on actuals in a more familiar and customizable Excel interface.

Create a Budget

Whether you are creating a single Budget directly in Amp Impact, or want to activate the Enhanced Excel Budget templates, the first step is to check which Budgets exist for your Project.

1. Navigate to the “Financials” (or similar) tab to see available Budgets, including their status (Planning, Approved, etc.).

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2. To create a new Budget, click on the “New” button to create a new Budget record. Typically, the Budget Status will be “Planning” when a Budget record is first created and it will be updated as the Budget is finalized.

   

3. Budgets can be connected to a specific Framework

   for your Project

   by selecting the relevant Framework in the “Framework” field. Connecting a Budget to a Framework can help organizations track how their spending relates to the intended impact or outcomes of their Projects.

4. A Budget can be

   'Locked'

   “Locked” for editing after it is approved by checking the

   'Locked'

   “Locked” checkbox.

Create Financial Line Item Records

1. Once If a Budget is created, you can create the related Financial records (budget line items).

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   1. Click on “New” to add a new Financial record/Budget Line Item

2. Create a new Financial Line Item by completing the fields on the Financial record.

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3. Click “Save”.

4. There are a number of fields on the Budget record that will be updated automatically as changes are made to the related Financial records/Budget Line Items.

Excel Upload/Download Feature

The Excel Upload/Download feature allows you to download Budget and Line Item records to an Excel sheet, make changes offline, and re-upload the templates.

Download a Budget & Line Items

1. To download a budget with its corresponding child financial line items, click on the 'Download' button on the relevant Budget record. The budget Excel will download directly on the page.

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2. When opening the downloaded Excel file, there are three tabs:

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   1. Tab 1 - 'Instructions': this tab outlines how to enter data in a compatible format to upload the data onto the Budget page. All of the instructions are controlled by custom labels and can be edited to include customized or additional instructions. 

   2. Tab 2 - 'Reference List': this tab provides all possible values for any picklist or relationship fields that are included on Tab 3.

   3. Tab 3 - 'Budget name': this tab displays a template with column fields from the Financial object. If there is existing data in the Budget record, it will display here; otherwise this will download as a blank template. 

3. The following may be edited in the Excel sheet:

   1. The number of tabs, and

   2. The values in the input cells which are indicated by the blue background in Tab 3.

4. Opening Tab 3 displays a header with the name of the project and the name of the budget. The row just below this header displays the date of download and the name of the user who downloaded the file. 

5. The fields Type__c, Category__c, and Subcategory__c are picklist fields with default values that come out of the box. Within the excel file, these picklist values can be accessed on the 'Reference List' tab. Values for custom picklists can also be accessed on the 'Reference List' tab.

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6. The lookup field Activity__c is optional for the user to fill out in the downloaded spreadsheet to be uploaded back onto the Budget. The master-detail field Reporting_Period__c is required and must be filled out in order to successfully upload financial line items. Users must enter the desired value in the spreadsheet for all lookup/master-detail fields; these values can be accessed on the 'Reference List' tab. Values for custom lookup/master-detail fields can also be accessed on the 'Reference List' tab.

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7. When a user downloads financials from the Budget record page, such that a formula field (e.g. ampi__Status__c) is added to ampi__BUDGET_EXCEL_COLUMNS fieldset on ampi__Financials__c, the financial Excel file displays the formula field as uneditable (i.e. with white background). 

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8. The following may not be edited for Tab 3 in order to ensure compatibility with the Upload feature:

   1. Tab name

   2. Header text 

   3. Names of the column headers

   4. The existence of at least one tab with the Budget name as the label

All numeric data will display in US English format. Regardless of the currency locale enabled in Salesforce settings, all downloaded budgets will display in this format. Guidelines are provided in the Instructions tab to edit the Excel settings to view numeric data in the format of preference.

Upload a Budget & Line Items

1. In editing the downloaded excel spreadsheet, users are able to update existing financial records and upsert - or create new - financial records. In the downloaded file, users are able to add/update records by entering data in the blue input cells. 

2. Users are able to download a budget which does not have any child financial records. Upon downloading and subsequently opening the downloaded file for a budget with no financial line items, users will see a template to be used to upload financial records onto the budget. The first ten rows are marked as blue input cells. 

3. Date and date/time fields must be inputted as YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS respectively for successful upload.

4. For example, date may be inputted as 2020-01-08 and date/time as 2020-01-08 02:26:00 in the appropriate cell.

5. Once data has been entered into the excel sheet, the user must navigate back to the Budget record page. On this page, click the Upload button. 

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6. Step 1 - Selecting the Upload button on the Budget page layout will prompt a popup for the user to attach the edited file to be uploaded. Ensure that the file type is ‘xlsx.’. Onclick of 'Upload' in this popup, an error message will appear if the uploaded document is not in the .xlsx format, or is an incompatible format. In this case, the user must revisit the document to be uploaded and edit it to make it compatible. If successful, clicking 'Upload' will prompt the next popup. The user may click Cancel at any time and return to the Budget page, with no records updated/upserted. 

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7. Step 2 - After a file has been selected in step 1, a new popup will ask users to confirm the upload. In this popup, users will have the option to click ‘Yes’ which will confirm the upload. Clicking on ‘No’ will close out of the step 2 popup and the page will return to the Budget page with no changes made.

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8. Step 3 - The last popup encountered while uploading will read 'Operation Complete,' with the number of successfully updated records and the number of errors that occurred.

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9. On this popup, there are several buttons: 

10. 'View Successes' - selecting this shows the user the successful uploads. Clicking on View Successes button will download an excel file with all of the financial items that successfully uploaded. This file will download on the Budget page.

11. If there are no successes, the View Successes button will not display in Step 3

12. 'View Errors' - clicking on this button shows the user an error log of records that could not be successfully uploaded and the associated errors. Clicking on View Errors button will download an excel file with all of the financial items that were unable to be uploaded with a column explaining what the error was. This file will download on the Budget page.

    1. Any values added to or updated in the formula field of the Excel file do not reflect in the formula field on the Financials object in Amp Impact. However, if a financial Excel file containing changes made to the formula field is uploaded to the Budget record, the file uploads successfully, without throwing any error messages in the error log Excel file.

13. If no errors occurred, the View Errors button will not display in Step 3

14. The user can download the success/error logs and then click on the 'Close' button in the step 3 pop-up. This will automatically refresh the Budget page. Upon navigating to the Related tab, the newly updated/upserted records will display.

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15. The downloaded budget excel file, the success log, and error log will all be stored under the Files related list as contentversion files. With each download of a budget and each generation of a success and error log, these contentversion files are updated, while still allowing users to access previous versions. 

16. If a budget record is approved/locked whereby no further edits should be made, clicking the Upload button will display an error message to notify users that the budget is locked from editing. 

Validation

While processing the Excel file during upload, validation is built-in to check for:

• invalid file type, (e.g. user selects a word document)

• data entry (e.g. currency code entered in a number field),

• metadata (e.g. user renames a column header).

Users are provided the full list of validation checks in the Instructions tab. 

Data Quality

1. no longer in use due to a revision or for any other reason, it can be made inactive by deselecting the “Active” checkbox.

Setup the Budget to Utilize the Enhanced Excel Budget Templates

Once the first Budget record is created, organizations can enable the Enhanced Excel Budget templates through the “Budget Cycles” component. It enables organizations to predefine Budget and Reporting Periods for their Projects and generate two Excel templates: The Excel Budget Planning Template and the Excel Financial Reporting Template.

Here are the setup and activation steps:

1. Navigate to the Budget record and locate the “Budgeting Cycle” component by clicking on “Setup”.

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2. Define the Budget Period to set the duration for which the budget is established and intended to be in effect by selecting a planning frequency from the “Budget Period” picklist. This will help you utilize the prebuilt Budget Planning template.

3. Next, connect the Budget Period you just selected with the relevant Reporting Periods from your Project by selecting the relevant Reporting Period from the “Budget Planning Periods” picklist. The “Budget Planning Periods” list only displays Reporting Period options that align with the frequency selected in the “Budget Period”. For example, if “Quarterly” is selected in the “Budget Period” field, then only quarterly Reporting Periods will be available for selection.

4. Similarly, you’ll define the Budget Reporting Intervals to set the frequency at which budget actuals will be reported. This is done by selecting the relevant option from the “Budget Reporting Intervals” picklist and relating that to the available Reporting Period options. This will help you utilize the Budget Reporting template.

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As of the Mira Release, the “Budgeting Cycle” component can be locked to prevent further edits. To do so ensure that the “Budget Locked” field is set to TRUE. It can also be locked via the “Submit and Lock Wizard.”

Enable Reporting Periods for Financial Tracking

Remember the Reporting Periods created earlier in the project setup process? The Reporting Period setup should align with the budget planning and financial reporting intervals and play a critical part to ensure that the Enhanced Excel Budget template structure is correct.

Note these steps to ensure that the hierarchy is automatically created and maintained:

1. On the Reporting Period records, ensure that the “Start Date” and “End Date” for each financial reporting interval align with the “Start Date” and “End Date” of the intended budget planning periods. E.g., if you define that you will plan your budget in quarterly increments (Parent Budget Period) and report on financials in monthly increments (Child Financial Reporting Period), the “Start Date” and “End Date” for the three months of the quarter need to align with the “Start Date” and “End Date” of the quarter. This means that if you set the Reporting Period dates for March from March 1st to April 1st, the hierarchy will not automatically be established and the Excel templates will not render the correct reporting structure.

2. If you remove a Reporting Period record from the “Budget Reporting Periods” or “Budget Planning Periods” fields after saving them, the hierarchy associated with that reporting period will be cleared as well.

3. If you delete a Reporting Period record associated with the “Budget Planning Periods” field, the hierarchy associated with the deleted record will be deleted as well.

4. Verify that the Reporting Periods you want to use are available for financial tracking by checking that the "Available for Financials" field on the Reporting Period record is checked (this box is checked by default).

Create Financial Line Item Records

1. Once a Budget is created, you can create the related Financial records (budget line items).

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2. Click on “New” to add a new Financial record/Budget Line Item and fill out the relevant fields.

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3. Click “Save”.

4. There are a number of fields on the Budget record that will be updated automatically as changes are made to the related Financial records/Budget Line Items.