The University of Toledo

SECTION I: BUDGET PROCESSES

BUDGET PLANNING

Budget planning is the process of forecasting what the anticipated revenues and expenses will be in the near future for the upcoming fiscal year. The budgeting and variance reporting process allows for a better understanding of where funds are being spent, how and compared to forecasts. Budgets should reflect the unit’s operational plans for a period of at least one fiscal year and ideally represent those plans over several years. Budgets typically are formally adopted and approved on an annual basis and budgets are administered from an annual budget perspective. Once a budget is approved, it should not change unless it goes through a rebudgeting process. Units should clearly define what level of budget change requires a rebudgeting process since this aspect can differ by unit and by type of fund. The budget plan should include all funds available to the unit, including operating and non‐operating funds.

The review, approval and endorsement of the budget, requires an understanding of the major budget components by the unit head. Since budgets live in details, responsibilities for budget details are typically delegated to faculty and staff, who have operational decision‐making authority. Preparation of a budget requires involvement of the head of the unit and their financial management staff (e.g. department administrator who typically report directly to the unit head).

The University of Toledo’s (The University) annual budget allocation process is only a part of the overall budget planning process. Each year, typically during the third quarter of the fiscal year, units are expected to develop an internal budget for both revenues and expenses in all funds available for use. This budget would be set for the upcoming fiscal year, but ideally would include several years. Budgeting by organization group, grant and index provides a greater level of detail for financial analysis and identifying variances. Please refer to the Web Report Library for historical reports to learn more about the process and procedures for entering a budget into the Banner system. 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUDGET TRANSFER REQUESTS (BTR) 

The budget transfer process has been completely automated. Only electronically submitted budget transfers using the Fupload form will be processed. Please indicate if the budget transfer is permanent, one-time, or an inter-fund journal entry by using the following two characters at the beginning of your spreadsheet file name:

BP = Permanent budget transfer (ex. BP_brief description_date.xls)

BT = One-time budget transfer (ex. BT_brief description_date.xls)

IF = Inter-fund journal entry that corresponds to a budget transfer (ex. IF_brief description_date.xls)

The form must be submitted in the exact format as the template. Column header descriptions and tab description (only one tab) must remain as indicated on the template. The account column should be kept in general number format. The first 5 columns must be populated for each line of the transfer and please do not leave blank lines in the middle of the transfer. Banner will not accept a formula in the amount field. The transfer amount field must be a whole number and rounded to the nearest dollar. Fuploads for cents are processed in rare instances.

For a permanent or one-time transfer the plus (+) and minus (-) signs are used. For an inter-fund the debit (D) and credit (C) are used for column D. Typically, the debits and credits or plus and minus must balance to zero. The exception is when increasing revenue and expense, both will have a plus (+) sign. Conversely, decreasing revenue and expense, both will have a minus (-) sign. Please submit the Fupload to the next level approver (business manager/departmental administrator/provost/vice president) as an excel sheet; a PDF will not work for Banner. The final approver will approve and submit via email to the budget office. The budget transfer will be reviewed by the budget office and submitted for processing if possible.

 
BUDGET AMENDMENTS

 
BUDGET TRANSFER REQUESTS

 
TRACKING OF POSITIONS

Positions can be tracked using the “Position Control Roster” report in Web Report Library (WRL). The Position Control Roster report is located in WRL under “Public”, “Human Resources” and finally under the “Budget” folder. This report is helpful to ensure that the salary and budget for each specific position in the Banner Human Resource system equals the total base budgeted amount in the Banner Finance system. There are four basic input values used to retrieve the information in this report. To run the report, it is necessary to input an index under the first parameter “Enter Account Index(s)” and click on the arrow button to the right > when prompted. The second parameter “Enter Executive/VP Level” you must select a value i.e. all, 10-president; 11-government relations, etc. and click on the arrow button to the right > when prompted. The third parameter “Enter Division/VP Level” again you must select a value i.e. all, 100-president, 101-community service, etc. and again click on the arrow button to the right > when prompted. Finally, the fourth parameter is set to “6-all” as the default. You may leave this final parameter as is or change as needed. Once you have input your parameter values, select “OK” button at the bottom of page. The report retrieves PCN, Employee Class, Title, Name of individual, Annual Salary, Position Budget Amount and subtotals for each index and account based on the above entered parameters. The report is sorted by Executive Level, Division, Index, Account, and then by Employee Name.