Budgets & Spending Controls

A budget in Kraal is a spending limit. It covers one account, applies to one cost center or one project, and runs over a fiscal year window. Once it is submitted, it controls spending: the budget is checked as material requests, purchase orders, and expense postings are made, and each document is blocked, posted with a warning, or left alone according to what you set.

A saved budget is a draft. Drafts do not gate spending. Submit is the step that turns the control on.

Two budget pages

This page covers the Budget page in the accounting Setup navigation, where the budgets that gate spending are created and submitted. To build a plan from a client's prior actuals, edit it line by line, and route it through approval, see Budgets.

Where to find it

Open Accounting → Setup → Budget.

The list shows the budgets of the client and entity currently selected in the workspace, and names that entity under the page title. Change the client or the entity in the workspace header and the list reloads for the new scope. When Kraal cannot tell which entity you mean, the page says Choose an entity to see its budgets rather than showing an empty table.

Reading the list

Each row is one budget: its ID, status, fiscal year, the cost center or project it is against, the account, the amount, the distribution frequency, its controls, and when it was last modified.

Fiscal year

The Fiscal Year selector at the top of the page is the filter that runs across every budget for the entity, not only the rows on screen. Leave it on All fiscal years, or pick one year.

Status

Status	Meaning
Draft	Saved but not in force. A draft does not gate spending.
Submitted	In force on the documents you enabled, and read-only in Kraal.
Cancelled	No longer in force and no longer editable. Create a new budget instead.

Controls

The Controls column carries one label for every check that is switched on, written as the action followed by what it applies to:

• Stop on MR and Warn monthly on MR for material requests.
• Stop on PO and Warn monthly on PO for purchase orders.
• Stop on actuals and Warn monthly on actuals for booked expenses.

Each enabled control contributes two labels, one for the annual check and one for the accumulated monthly check. A control left switched off contributes nothing, because nothing is checked for it. A budget with no control enabled shows a dash.

Filters and paging

• Status and Against above the table are quick filters. They narrow the rows already loaded on the current page.
• Filter opens a panel on the right holding Fiscal Year, Status, and Against together, with Clear and Apply.
• 20, 100, and 200 set the page size. Previous and Next move between pages. The count names the range on the current page, and when a quick filter hides part of it, the count also says how many rows are shown.
• Refresh reloads the current page.

When the list is empty

The empty row states which case it is, and names the entity:

• No budget covers fiscal year 2026 for Acme Inc. The entity has budgets, but none for the year in the filter.
• No budgets exist for Acme Inc. yet. The entity has no budget at all.
• No budgets match the filters on this page. Rows loaded, but the quick filters hid them.

Creating a budget

Click New budget and complete the three sections.

Scope

1. Budget Against: Cost Center or Project. A budget controls one of the two, never both.
2. Cost Center or Project: the one the budget applies to. Required.
3. Account: the income or expense account the budget covers. Required.
4. Budget Amount: required, and greater than zero.

Period

1. From Fiscal Year: required. To Fiscal Year defaults to the same year; set a later one for a budget that spans more than one year.
2. Distribution Frequency: Monthly, Quarterly, Half-Yearly, or Yearly. Kraal splits the amount equally across each period between the two fiscal years. The Distribution table on a saved budget lists the periods it produced, with start date, end date, amount, and percent.

Controls

Two checks run on every checkpoint you enable:

• Annual compares against the full budget for the fiscal window.
• Accumulated monthly compares against the budget released to date by the distribution.

Switch on the checkpoints this budget should gate. Each takes its own pair of actions, one for the annual check and one for the accumulated monthly check:

• Applicable on Material Request
• Applicable on Purchase Order
• Applicable on Booking Actual Expenses

The three stack, so a checkpoint cannot run without the ones under it. Material requests need purchase orders and booked expenses switched on as well; purchase orders need booked expenses. The form names the missing one before it lets you save.

Each action answers what should happen when the budget is exceeded:

Action	What it does
Stop	Blocks the document at submit when the budget is exceeded.
Warn	Posts the document and shows a warning.
Ignore	Does nothing.

A new budget starts with Applicable on Booking Actual Expenses switched on, Stop for the annual check, and Warn for the accumulated monthly check.

Save versus Submit

Save keeps the budget a draft. Draft budgets do not gate spending. Submit a budget to turn the control on.

Submit asks you to confirm first, and the confirmation states what changes: submit turns this budget into a live control, it is enforced on the documents you enabled, and submitted budgets are read-only in Kraal. Keep as draft backs out; Submit budget goes ahead.

Once a budget is submitted:

• Its fields are read-only in Kraal. The page still shows the values; it does not let you change them.
• Cancelling or revising a submitted budget is not available in Kraal yet. Ask your workspace's accounting administrator to make that change.
• Only submitted budgets are compared in the Budget Variance report.

There is no delete. Kraal does not remove budgets, drafts included, so read a draft through before you submit it rather than planning to clear it away afterwards.

Viewing variance

Every row in the list ends with View variance. It opens the Budget Variance report with that budget's fiscal years, its Budget Against setting, and its cost center or project already applied.

You can also open the report from Reporting → Standard Reports and pick Budget Variance from the Management group in the report catalog.

The Budget Variance report

This report is scoped by fiscal year rather than by the date range other reports use, so it carries its own filters in place of the date pair:

Filter	What it does
From Fiscal Year and To Fiscal Year	The window to report. Leave both on Entity default to use the entity's own fiscal year.
Period	Monthly, Quarterly, Half-Yearly, or Yearly columns.
Budget Against	Report by Cost Center or by Project.
Cost Center or Project	All, or one of them. The picker follows the Budget Against setting.
Show cumulative	Adds running totals across the periods.

The period chip in the header reads Fiscal year 2026, or Fiscal years 2026 to 2027 for a two-year window, or Entity default fiscal year when neither year is set. A Basis badge names the basis the figures were produced on, such as Accrual basis.

The report names its own columns, so period columns carry the period they cover, such as Budget (Jan) 2026.

Only submitted budgets are compared. With no cost center or project selected, an empty run says No submitted budget covers this fiscal year. With one selected, it says No submitted budget matches the selected cost center (or project), because budgets may exist for that fiscal year under other cost centers or projects, and it names the filter to change. Both states send you back here to create a budget and submit it, and the Budgets are set here now link in the report header opens this page.

Good to know

• One account and one dimension per budget. Cover a second account or a second cost center with a second budget.
• A draft controls nothing at all, whatever its controls say.
• A submitted budget is read-only in Kraal, and there is no delete.
• Cost center, project, and fiscal year pickers list the first 500 entries. When a list is capped, the form says so, so a missing entry is visible rather than silent.
• The variance report reads submitted budgets only, so a draft never appears in it.

Troubleshooting

• New budget, Save, or Submit is disabled: your access does not cover changing budgets for this client. The page states the reason above the form.
• Budget options did not load: the form says so and asks you to reload before saving. Reload the page rather than saving against empty pickers.
• The fiscal year filter is empty: the list says the filter did not load. Reload to try again. The list itself still loads, for the year the entity defaults to.
• The change went through but Kraal could not read it back: the write landed and the page could not confirm what was stored. Reload to see the current state before editing again.
• The variance report is empty: check that a budget covering that fiscal year and that dimension is Submitted, not Draft.

Related guides

• Budgets for building, editing, and approving a plan.
• Chart of Accounts for the accounts, cost centers, and projects a budget points at.
• Report Banners & Status Messages for what the badges above a report mean.