Configure a budget

  • Updated

Use the Budget Setup tab in Optimizely Configured Commerce to define enforcement levels, budget periods, and optional cost codes. You can then set the budget amounts on the Budget Maintenance tab.

Administrators can set budget amounts for any user; however, only users with the role of Buyer 2 can submit a request to go over budget or receive a notification that the current purchase exceeds the defined budget.

To access Budget Management, enable it first. Then, sign in to the website and go to My Account > Budget Management.

Budget enforcement

Use Budget Enforcement Level to control if a budget impacts users during the shopping experience. The default is No Enforcement. You can only have one budget enforcement level active at a time.

  • No Enforcement – Has no impact on budget validation during the logged-in user's shopping experience.
  • Customer Level – Validates budgets across all ShipTo's for the logged-in user and customer combination.
  • Customer Ship To – Validates budgets against the selected ShipTo and the logged-in user's role.
  • User – Validates budgets against the user record.

Click Save when done.

The setting Budgets From Online Orders Only must be set to Yes to select the User enforcement level. You can activate this setting globally or for a specific website. If this setting is No, ERP orders also apply to budgets.

Cost code (optional)

Cost codes are not integrated with budgets and are used only to provide additional metadata on orders at the customer level.

  • Cost Code – Create an internal description.
  • Description – Create a description that is displayed on the website.
  • Active – Mark a cost code as Active or Inactive. You can mark cost codes as inactive, but you cannot delete them.

Budget period

Use Budget Periods Setup to create the periods for a budget. When creating multi-period budgets, any unspent dollars from previous months roll forward to the current month. For example, if your quarterly budget is $500:

  • Q1 - $500 – Spent $250, carrying over $250 to the next quarter
  • Q2 - $500 – Spent $150, carrying over $350 + $250 from the previous quarter
  • Q3 - $500 – Current day
  • Q4 - $500

Buyer 2 could spend $1,100 ($350 + $250 + $500) in Q3 before they must submit it for approval.

Create a standard 12-month calendar budget

  1. Go to My Account > Budget Management on the storefront.
  2. Select Budget Setup.
  3. Select the budget year from the Budget Year drop-down list.
  4. (Optional) Clear the Budget Year End field using the calendar window.

  5. Click Assign Calendar Months.
  6. Click Save.

The result is a populated list of each month for the selected calendar year.

Create a quarterly budget

  1. Go to My Account > Budget Management on the storefront.
  2. Select Budget Setup.
  3. Select the budget year from the Budget Year menu.
  4. (Optional) Clear the Budget Year End field using the calendar window.

  5. Click into the Start Date field for Period 1 and select January 1 of the desired year.
  6. Click into the Start Date field for Period 2 and select April 1.
  7. Continue until you populate all four periods.
  8. Click Save.

The end result should look similar to this example:

Create a fiscal year budget

  1. Go to My Account > Budget Management on the storefront.
  2. Select Budget Setup.
  3. Select the budget year from the Budget Year menu.
  4. Clear the Budget Year End field using the calendar window.

  5. Click Assign Calendar Months.
  6. Delete the first three budget periods so April is in the first position.
  7. Select January of the following year for Period 10.
  8. Continue until you populate all 12 periods.

    The End Date for the 12th period may be incorrect and is not an editable field.

    To fix this, go to the top of the page and enter the proper Budget Year End date.

  9. Ensure the date is correct.

  10. Click Save.