Budgeting
Overview
Budgeting allows a Supervisor to set a Budget of hours or cost. This allows an easier way to plan and manage shifts to keep on track with the limitations and requirements of a workforce.
Configuring the Budget
To begin, you will need to set your preferences for the Budget in the System preferences. Open the Planner budget menu to change these. You can then specify if you want your Budget to specify the cost or the hours. For the following examples, hours will be used. Tick the Group budget active checkbox to active the Budget.
Hours or Cost?
The choice of display is entirely down to preference – functionally they are identical. The only difference is how the data is displayed:
• Hours: This option will total the number of hours that you have budgeted within a period of time, then compare it with the number of hours that are planned (using shifts) within that same time period. This option is useful if you require a budget from a more logistical standpoint – for example, a construction company that knows they need X number of hours to complete a project. However, if you are budgeting for the “waiting staff” department and know they are all on the same hourly wage, you will also know that you have a budget for Y number of hours.
• Cost: This option will instead use data based on an employee’s pay, rather than the amount of time they are set to be working. TMS will compare the budgeted cost with the costs of the planned shift times.
Creating a Budget
To create a budget, you will need to navigate to the Budget maintenance page (either through a Widget or the Header pane). You should then click the '+' button in the top right-hand corner to add a new budget.
This will open the Create budget screen. On this screen you can modify several things about your budget:
- Start & End Date - the designated period for your budget. If you want a weekly budget, you can create one for a single week and then copy it to subsequent weeks later, so do not need to worry about having to add individual budgets for each week.
- Field - This will designate how you will group budgets - for example, by department or job title.
- Value - This will choose which subsection of what you put in Field the budget will be specifically for. For example, if you entered Department into the Field box, you can then choose from the different departments you have.
- Budget (Hours/Cost) - This is where you enter your desired budget in hours or cost. This field will change depending on what you entered in the System Preferences.
Once you are happy with the budget, click Submit to save your choices:
You will then be taken back to the Budget maintenance screen, and a confirmation message will appear. The created budget will then be displayed on the Budget maintenance screen - you will need to use the navigation tools in the top right to display the correct week.
Note: You can dopy budgets a week forward by selecting them in the Budget maintenance screen, and then clicking Copy at the bottom of the window that opens. You may then specify how many weeks to copy it forward.
Viewing the budget in the Group Planner
To show the Budget in the Group planner, you will need to modify the totals in the System preferences. Navigate to the Planner menu, and then locate the Totals section. Ensure the Totals checkbox is ticked. Under that is the Totals to display box which will allow you to choose which to display. The options related to budgeting are as follows:
- Group hours budget
- Group cost budget
Then, your Budgets will be displayed in the Group planner. To view the Budget, click the top left cell of the table (the one with the headers for the Totals columns). This will then display the Group budget in the details panel.
Note: You may need to adjust what Employees you are viewing using the tools at the top of the window.
If you go over-budget, then the Group budget value will display in red to provide a visual cue:
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Budgeting
In this video, learn how to create and manage Budgets in TMS 8.