With a correct budgeting process, companies can benefit from forecasting and use financial insights to compare actuals against allocated budget. You can use the Budgeting module in Finance for basic budgeting, budget planning, and budget control.
After a budget is established and approved in Finance, you can convert the budget plan to a budget register entry. Budget register entries provide tools for maintaining the budget and for keeping amounts traceable through budget codes.
Budget register entries let you revise original budgets, perform transfers, and carry forward budget amounts from the previous year. Based on the established budget, a company can enable budget control. The level of control depends on the organizational culture and the organization's level of maturity.
Finance includes a budget control framework that lets the company's management select either hard control (which prevents postings that would go over the budget) or soft control (where users are warned that they will exceed the available budget funds but can decide for themselves how to proceed).
Finally, you can use rolling forecasts. A rolling forecast is a regular comparison of budget to actuals and is used to define how well the company operates against the budget. A rolling forecast is also used to identify trends. In Finance, rolling forecasts are supported through a budget plan document as initial planning activities. Rolling forecasts can be done in parallel with planning for the upcoming budget cycle.
