Budgeting Window
- Especially when working on smaller screens it's great to collapse / expand the budget information box that contains detailed info about the selected Budget if you don't need them at that stage.
- Also in that case it's great that the table headings and left columns get "sticky", so they still show when you scroll down or to the right.
- The "View Options" (eye icon) buttons are moved to the left/top so they're more easily accessible.
The Numbers!
- Now you can see the Sell total for each Budget is displayed in the list of Budgets giving you a quick glance what we're talking about.
- New "Profit" and "Margin" columns directly display the Sell-Buy and Sell-Buy / Sell numbers. The same numbers are also found in the Financial Report Designer. So you can directly see where you are with this or multiple projects.
Budget and Actuals
- When dragging lines in Scheduling Mode, it now respects the Multiplier.
- Moved the "Attach Actuals" buttons to the top of the Actuals window so you can directly hit the button to attach - no need to scroll down....
- When using "Show Details > None", all Details are now hidden - even if they contain Actuals.
Over Budget
To keep an eye on your budget and get alerted if things are going out of budget, a new filter and warning icon was added for when "Forecast" for Sell is over "Budgeted".
Flexible Layouts
You can now add NOTES on Budget Categories and Accounts. This is useful if you don't have a fixed budget structure, so you can use the Category / Account notes to describe each section.
For example if a production has multiple shoots and need different items in each: your Budget Categories could be called ‘Section 1’, ‘Section 2’ etc and use the Category note to replace the name: London Shoot, Palma shoot etc…
Another example is for a more SHOT based structure, with Categories named, Shot 1, Shot 2... and then add to the NOTE what this shot is about.
Or you can simply use it to include / exclude / add descriptions on a per Category rather than Budget Level.
Working with Price Agreements
If you work with Price Agreements and want them to apply to your Final Invoice AND Actuals view as well, so you get the good reporting across all states, a new setting triggers to automatically forward Price Agreements and also sync with the "Actuals" view.
In the Budget window, you could already use the "Forward To Final / Invoice View" option on a list of Price Agreements, and have it automatically put actuals into that Price Agreement when you attach them to Budget Details.
Now, that also works for the "Actuals" view. So:
- There's a new "Forward To Actuals View" option in the menu.
- When you attach Actuals to Budget Details, it will perform the same auto-attaching to Price Agreements on the "Actuals" view, as it previously only did on the "Final / Invoice" view.
Lock Budgets
There's a new User Permission called "Can Lock / Unlock Budgets" (default Off).
If a User has "Can Lock / Unlock Budgets" permissions, he will see an "unlocked" icon in front of the budget name.
If clicked, the Budget will go into a locked state and can't be edited by anyone. Mousing over the lock icon reveals a tooltip with the info of who locked it and when: "Locked by [user name] On [date / time]".
- Locked Budgets cannot be renamed, nor deleted. But options "Duplicate" and "Copy To Global Template" are available.
- Actuals can still be attached / detached to the Budget Details of a locked Budget, but you can't e.g. add, remove or edit existing details.
- You can still use the following options on Budget Details:
- "Copy Budget Line", to allow the user to copy from a locked budget and paste into a new unlocked budget on same project.
- "Forward Budget Line To Actuals"
- Anyone with "Can Lock / Unlock Budgets" permissions can unlock the Budget for further editing.
- Users with no permission to lock / unlock will only see the lock icon next those Budgets that are locked, but Budgets that are not locked do not show the "unlocked" icon for this user.