Larry,

If you need multiple budgets, set them up in separate Ledger databases (as actual current entries, not budgets). Then use Adagio FX for the financial reporting.

Changes to the "budgets" will be tracked in the posting journala in those databases. Security can be set up to limit access for most users to read-only.

Now that is an elegant solution that hadn't occurred to me.

Thanks Ralph.

I've added a note to consider some form of budget change control for Ledger V9.0, but that wouldn't be as tight as Ralph's solution as far as auditability.

Hi Andrew

Not to douse your enthusiasm, but Ralph's solution is not elegant. I have tried it at a client, and it is unbelievably unwieldy having to maintain two sets of identical charts of accounts in two separate databases. Not to mention the constant updating in FX.

The more elegant solution, assuming the account structure is not using all six characters for the account number, is to create additional (inactive) accounts, with a "B" prefix (e.g. if postage is 6250, then B6250). Use these B accounts to enter the original budget, and use the non-prefix account to track the revised budget numbers. This is preferable because the B accounts only have to be visited once a year.

Without getting into details, it is then trivial to create a Financial Report whose columns can refer to either the non-prefix or the prefix budget figures. If you want those details, let me know.

Steve

Would it be easier if the "B" were a suffix? Wouldn't the budget then be next to the actual account and it would be easy to see that they matched up with the actual account.

Hi Steve,

The nice thing about Ralph's solution is that it provides an audit trail of changes to the budget figures. The prefix/suffix method is easier to deal with on the financial reporter and doesn't require the use of FX, but there is no audit trail of changes to the budget figures (unfortunately).

Hi Andrew,

That's a lot more work just to get an audit trail. If you really want an audit trail, you can do the same thing with my solution, posting journal entries to the "B" accounts and using it as the revised budget instead. If you are worried about fake transactions hitting a live GL, you can do it as a provisional posting.

Steve

Good point.

Can either of you describe what type of audit trail would be required to directly satisfy the requirement?