Budgets

We've made it easy to create budgets and track actual performance against them.  This allows you to meet the first Journey to Excellence (JTE) requirement for Planning and Budget, and is also a great way to determine your fundraising goals.

The User Guide has a new section that walks you through the process of configuring and entering budgets.

Here are some of the highlights.

Budget Template Based On BSA Budget Worksheet.  The Budget Template is a set of budget items that get applied to each fiscal year's budget.  We created a default set of budget items based on the BSA's budget worksheet for Boy Scout troops.  All you have to do is review this template and extend as needed.

Quick Configuration of Transaction Types.  As you might have guessed, we use the Transaction Type to control whether you are prompted for a budget item on a given transaction.  Since this is turned off by default, the transaction types need to be updated to enable budgeting.  There is a button on the Transaction Types page to Enable Budget Using Recommended Settings.  This will update some of your transaction types to enable budgeting, using an algorithm we developed.  After using this function, please review the settings for all transaction types.

Easy Entry Of Budget Values.  After you create a fiscal year, you can easily enter the budget values for expenses and income.

Just fill in the blanks.  For some items you'll enter the per person value and the number of persons, and the system will compute the budget amount for you.

Assign Events To Budget Items.  Campouts and other outings can be assigned to budget items.  You may then enter a budget for each event.  Fundraiser events can also be assigned to a budget item.

Since the event is assigned to a budget item, you don't need to specify a budget item on any of the transactions you enter for an event.  The actual expense and income values for the event are rolled up into the budget item assigned to the event.

Quick Assignment of Existing Transactions  If you've already entered transactions for this fiscal year, they need to be assigned to a budget item.  This can be done on a mass basis, using a page that only selects transactions which have not been assigned a budget item.

Reporting.  As of this newsletter, there is only one budget report available.  We need your ideas for additional budget reports!  Please send us a detailed description of what you'd like at CustomerSupport@TroopWebHost.com

Fiscal Years For Fund Accounting

Now that we have a Fiscal Year table, it is no longer necessary to assign a fiscal year to individual transactions.  This was required in the past to produce the Fund Balances By Fiscal Year report.

The report now calculates the fiscal year for each transaction by comparing the transaction date to the starting and ending dates of the fiscal year.

Limit Parent's Access To Subaccounts

Last month we announced the ability for parents to transfer money between their scouts' accounts.

Some troops were concerned that this would allow the parents to make adjustments to subaccounts that need to be managed closely by the troop, such as fundraiser proceeds.

We've added a checkbox to the Personal Subaccounts table that allows you to control whether that subaccount will be available as a choice for the parents.  We turned this off for all subaccounts other than the default subaccount.

This also determines whether the parent can select this personal subaccount when making on-line payments.

View Member Balances While Entering Transactions

The system now displays the overall balance of each member's account (including all personal subaccounts) in the drop down lists for Charge To Person or Credit To Person, as shown below.

We also display the both the primary subaccount balance and (if applicable) the reserve subaccount balances when entering Group Transactions.

Send Us Your Questions and Suggestions

Please send your questions and suggestions to us at CustomerSupport@TroopWebHost.com.  We appreciate your input, and we will respond as quickly as possible.

When you write to us, please include your unit number and city so we can help you more effectively.