Budget Management

v0.1.0 Edulab

Module name	budget
Version	0.1.0
Needs	core only
Entities	9 (list)
Roles	budget:admin, budget:finance, budget:hod, budget:clerk, budget:auditor

Plan department budgets per financial year, control spending through approved expenditure requests, and move money between heads with a tracked re-appropriation.

This is a budget management module, not an accounting system. It has no general ledger, double-entry vouchers, trial balance, balance sheet or bank reconciliation. It tracks allocations, approvals and utilisation against them.

Who uses it

Role	Can do
budget:admin	Set up financial years, budget heads, sub-heads and sub-departments; full access to everything
budget:finance	Allocate budgets to departments and sub-departments, approve or reject re-appropriations, see every department
budget:hod	Approve, part-approve or reject expenditure requests and post-facto top-ups; raise re-appropriation requests
budget:clerk	Raise expenditure requests, ask for post-facto top-ups, record actual expenses (sees only own requests)
budget:auditor	Read-only view of all budget data

What it does

• Masters: financial years (April–March by default), budget heads, sub-heads per year, sub-departments under each department.
• Allocation: one budget per department (or sub-department) per financial year, split into head / sub-head lines with allocated, estimated and available amounts. Copy a department's budget or a year's sub-heads forward. Excel upload of allocations.
• Expenditure requests: a clerk asks for an amount against a sub-head; the amount is reserved straight away so the budget cannot be over-committed. Requests above the available amount are refused.
• Approval: the HOD approves in full, approves a lower amount (the difference goes back to the budget) or rejects (everything goes back). A decision can be reverted to Pending.
• Post-facto top-up: after approval, a further amount can be requested and approved or rejected separately.
• Expense recording: the clerk records what was actually paid, in one or more parts; when the request is closed, any unspent approved amount returns to the budget.
• Re-appropriation: move an amount from one department/head/sub-head to another, approved by Finance.
• Utilisation tracking: allocated vs requested vs approved vs spent vs available, per department, head and sub-head; downloadable as Excel or PDF.

Needs

• Core: 1.x (departments are core colleges; users are core users)
• Modules: none

Setup after install

1. Check Financial year starts in month (financialYearStartMonth, default April) and create the current financial year (e.g. 2026-27).
2. Add sub-departments where a department splits its budget.
3. Add budget heads, then the sub-heads for the year.
4. Finance enters or uploads each department's allocation.
5. Assign the budget:hod, budget:clerk and budget:finance roles to staff, and give each HOD and clerk access to their department(s).
6. Choose Expenditure approval levels (approvalLevels) and whether post-facto top-ups are allowed (allowPostFacto).

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
Financial year starts in month	4	Month (1–12) a financial year begins; used for new years and reports
Expenditure approval levels	1	1 = HOD decides; 2 = HOD then Finance
Reserve the amount from the budget when a request is raised	Yes	Holds the requested amount until the decision so two requests cannot spend the same money
Allow post-facto top-up requests	Yes	Lets an approved request ask for more afterwards
Require an office reference number on every request	No	Makes the reference number mandatory

Events

Emits	When
budget.expenditure_request.submitted	A clerk raises an expenditure request
budget.expenditure_request.approved	An HOD (or Finance at level 2) approves a request or a post-facto top-up
budget.expenditure_request.rejected	A request or a post-facto top-up is rejected
budget.expenditure.recorded	An actual expense is recorded against an approved request
budget.reappropriation.approved	Finance approves moving money between heads or departments
budget.allocation.exceeded	A request or top-up was refused because it is more than the available amount

Listens to	Does
—	This module does not listen to any events

Personal data

No fields are marked pii. Requester, approver and recorder are links to core users; personal details stay in core.

Support

Published by Edulab. Report problems through your Edulab support desk or your account manager; include the request or allocation number shown on screen.