DART - How to Distribute Budget to Cost Center Categories

August 30, 2005

How to Distribute Budget to Categories

Once the University budget cycle is complete, departments will be able to distribute their maintenance budget into categories that are meaningful to financial managers in those departments. This is accomplished in the DART function DBC (Distribute Budget to Categories). Before beginning this process, the departmental user must ensure that the categories they are expecting to use are established for the cost center(s) for which budget is to be distributed in this manner. See the help topic"How to Establish and Maintain Cost Center/Category Combinations" for help on setting up the categories that are needed.

To distribute budget

Note: This should be done only after the budget process is complete.

• Input "DBC" in the Command field and press Enter.
• Input an Action of U, the Date. (normally July 1, but can be any month in the fiscal year), and the CCC.
• Input the From DeptCatg, the departmental category from which budget is to be distributed. This is the category that was updated by the PSB system during the budget cycle. Normally, the category used is Maint (Maintenance).
• Input the To DeptCatg that is the beginning category to which budget is to be transferred.
• Press Enter.
• Input values in the Change column for the budget amounts desired. Negative values are permitted, in essence providing the ability to have multiple froms. The Change amount for the From DeptCatg will be plugged by summing the inverse of the values entered for the To (starting) DeptCatg.
  Note: It is possible to make an entry so that original budget is reduced below zero. This could happen when budget is distributed during the year for a month in which no budget exists. For instance, the budget amount is in the July month, but the September month is being updated.
• Press Enter to perform screen calculations.
• Press PF10 to save the screen and proceed to the next screen of categories.

To distribute budget to categories after period where budget was posted has closed The budget is placed in the July period in DART, thus making July the most logical month in which to distribute budget. In this case, the maintenance budget would be reduced and the budget of the other categories would be increased. However, if the July period has closed, then the budget would be trapped or remain in the July period. This would not prevent the user from distributing the budget in August, but the display would look different. Since the budget for August is zero, then distributing budget to categories in the August period would reduce the maintenance category below zero for the month of August. The Y-T-D budget for maintenance would be the sum of that category for the months of July and August.

Phone Help

If you need assistance and can't find the answer in this or other DART documentation, call Financial Affairs at 5-4547.