Budget Expense

Expenses correspond to amounts spent to attain the objectives of the folio. They can belong to any of the three categories described in the budget section Categories: OPEX, CAPEX or FINEX. Expenses can be single occurrence, or they can be recurrent. Recurrent expenses can also be amortized; in which case the amount associated with the payment will be evenly split on the payment period. Expenses should represent all money that you plan to be spent during the folio's time frame, such as rents, maintenance contracts, software license purchases, loan financing costs or mortgages.

Adding an expense

To budget an expense, either click the Add Expense button or hit the "a" (for add) shortcut key. This brings the expense edition dialog. Check the "create another" box at the bottom of the dialog in order to create many expenses in sequence.

The following table describes the various fields of the expense edition dialog.

Name	The name of the expense as it will be displayed on the left side of the budget. Examples: Rent for 222 Main Street, IDE licenses, Printer toner, Web hosting fee
Amount	The amount of this expense. Note that in the case of a recurrent expense, the amount of the payments for that expense will depend if it is amortized or not. If the expense is amortized, the amount entered here will be evenly split on the number of payments defined in the recurrence definition (see Recurring field below). Otherwise, the amount of each payment will be the amount entered in this field.
Category	The category of the expense. See section Categories for more details on each option.
Type	A type for the expense is used to group expenses. While typing in this field, types entered previously for other expenses that match what you type will be suggested to you for completion to help you avoid typos and duplications. Examples: Rent, Office furniture, Licenses, etc.
Recurring	By default, an expense occurs only once. To change the date of occurrence of that expense or to make the expense recurrent (and possibly amortized), click the edit link. This brings up a dialog allowing you to define the recurrence for that expense. As you change the values in that dialog, you will be presented with a phrase explaining the recurrence, in the text area located just above. See section on Expense recurrence for more details on the Recurrence dialog.
Amortized	If the Repeat value in the Recurrence dialog is changed to something else than Once, then an amortized checkbox appears under the Recurring field. Check this box if you want the Amount of this expense to be evenly split in payments occurring on dates defined in the Recurring field.
Description	An optional, free form description of the position.

Expense recurrence

When editing an expense, you can define the dates of its payments using the Recurrence dialog that appears when clicking the edit link of the Recurring field in the Expense edition dialog. The recurrence dialog gives you great flexibility on defining when the payments should occur. A recurrent expense can occur Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly. Furthermore, each of these frequencies brings other options to further specify dates of occurence.

Daily expense

Select "Daily" in "Repeat" field to specify a daily expense. A daily expense can occur at some interval, for example, every 3 days.

The following table describes the various fields of the daily expense dialog

Repeats every

The interval in days separating payment occurrences.

Example: Every 3 days.

Starts on

The date the first payment will occur for that expense.
That date can be specified outside of the folio's time frame.
In that case, no payment (and thus no cost) will be calculated for that expense in the budget and a warning will be displayed next to the expense's name.

See Expenditures and Portfolio Time Frame for more details.

Ends

One of three options:

Never, means it will end at folio's end date; it will also be considered in the forecasts if the Estimated date to completion is later than the folio's end date.
After a specified number of occurrences;
On a specified date.

Weekly expense

Select "Weekly" in "Repeat" field to specify a weekly expense. A weekly expense can occur at some interval, for example, every 3 weeks. It can also occur on more than one specified days of the week for each period

Repeats every	The interval in weeks separating payment occurrences. Example: Every 3 weeks.
Repeat on	Check the days of week the payments will occur for the expense.
Starts on	The date on or after which the first payment will occur for that expense. If the date entered does not match the other criteria, then the first payment will occur on the first date matching the definition occurring after that date. The date can be specified outside of the folio's time frame. In that case, no payment (and thus no cost) will be calculated for that expense in the budget and a warning will be displayed next to the expense's name. See Expenditures and Portfolio Time Frame for more details.
Ends	One of three options: Never, means it will end at folio's end date; it will also be considered in the forecasts if the Estimated date to completion is later than the folio's end date. After a specified number of occurrences; On a specified date.

Monthly expense

Select "Monthly" in "Repeat" field to specify a monthly expense. A monthly expense can occur at some interval, for example, every 3 months. It can also be specified to occur on a given day of the month (e.g. Every 7th day of the month) of on a given day of week (e.g. Every second Monday of the month).

The following table describes the various fields of the monthly expense dialog.

Repeats every

The interval in months separating payment occurrences.

Example: Every 3 months.

Repeat by

One of two options:

Day of the month: the payments will occur on the day of the month specified by the date entered in "Starts on" field. (e.g. Every 7th day of the month)
Day of the week: the payments will occur on the day of the week specified by the date entered in "Starts on" field. (e.g. Every second Monday of the month)

Starts on

The date on or after which the first payment will occur for that expense.
If the date entered does not match the other criteria, then the first payment will occur the first date matching the definition occurring after that date.
The date can be specified outside of the portfolio's time frame. In that case, no payment (and thus no cost) will be calculated for that expense in the budget and a warning will be displayed next to the expense's name.

See Expenditures and Portfolio Time Frame for more details.

Ends

One of three options:

Never, means it will end at portfolio's end date; it will also be considered in the forecasts if the Estimated date to completion is later than the portfolio's end date.
After a specified number of occurrences;
On a specified date.

Yearly expense

Select "Yearly" in "Repeat" field to specify a yearly expense. A yearly expense can occur at some interval, for example, every 3 years.

The following table describes the various fields of the monthly expense dialog.

Repeats every

The interval in years separating payment occurrences.

Example: Every 3 years.

Starts on

The date of the first payment for that expense. The date can be specified outside of the portfolio's time frame.
In that case, no payment (and thus no cost) will be calculated for that expense in the budget and a warning will be displayed next to the expense's name.

See Expenditures and Portfolio Time Frame for more details.

Ends

One of three options:

Never, means it will end at portfolio's end date; it will also be considered in the forecasts if the Estimated date to completion is later than the portfolio's end date.
After a specified number of occurrences;
On a specified date.

Expenditures and Portfolio Time Frame

Expenditures can exist outside of a portfolio time frame. Consequently, you can:

Specify an expense date occurring before or after the portfolio's start and end date.
Set recurrent expenses starting outside of the portfolio's time frame with an end date inside the time frame.
Have recurrent expenses starting inside of the portfolio's time frame with an end date outside the time frame.
Confirm recurrent expenses starting outside of the portfolio's time frame with an end date after the end of the portfolio.

In the above situation, a warning indicator will be displayed next to the expenditure name and in the detailed panel when the expenditure is selected.

This is also usefull when copying an entire portfolio with its budget and/or actual. You might want to change the portfolio dates, but not lose the expenditure information it contains. These situations could also happen when changing portfolio dates in the Folio Configuration.

Note that if the Estimated date to completion of the portfolio is calculated to be later than the configured portfolio end date, then the payments occurring after the portfolio end date will appear in the forecast graph. In Budget and Actual pages though, only the payments occurring during the portfolio time frame are taken into account for calculations.

Editing expense

Select an existing expense to modify by clicking on it and then either click on the drop-down menu on the top-right part of the expense details view (on righthand side of the screen) and select the Edit option or hit the "e" (for edit) shortcut key. This will bring up the expense edition dialog. For a detailed description of the expense edition dialog, refer to Adding an expense section above.

Deleting an expense

Select an existing expense to delete by clicking on it and then either click on the drop-down menu on the top-right part of the expense details view (on righthand side of the screen) and select the Delete option or hit the "d" (for delete) shortcut key. This will bring up a dialog to confirm expense deletion. Click the Delete button to confirm the deletion, or Cancel link to abort deletion. Deletion is permanent, thus make sure you really want to delete an expense before proceeding.

You can delete multiple expenses or even a mix of positions and expenses at once by selecting multiple lines in the budget (by pressing and holding the Control key while clicking the positions and expenses to delete). You can then delete the selected expenditures the same way you delete a single expense. Note that in this case, the deletion confirmation will inform you of how many items are about to be deleted.

Copying an expense to actual

Select an existing expense to copy to actual by clicking on it and then either click on the drop-down menu on the top-right part of the expense details view (on righthand side of the screen) and select the Copy to actual option or hit the "t" (for to Actual) shortcut key. This will copy the selected expense to actual, including its attached files.

You can copy multiple expenses to actual at once by selecting them in the budget (by pressing and holding the Control key while clicking the expenses to copy). You can then copy the selected expenses the same way you copy a single expense. The confirmation message will inform you of how many expenses have been copied.

Expense costs

The budget page shows the calculated planned cost for each expense and expense groups (by type). The cost of an expense is calculated by multiplying its payment amount by the number of payments.

Cost = Number of payments x Payment amount

The number of payments depends on the recurrence definition for that expense and the portfolio's time frame. Only payments occurring (inclusively) between the portfolio's start and end dates (see Folio Configuration) are computed.

Note also that non-working days are not taken into account (e.g. a rent payment won't be skipped if the incurrence date is a holiday).

Example 1 - Recurrent expense

Amount: 100$

Cost	4 x 100$ = 400$
Recurrence definition	Monthly on day 1, from 1/Feb/2014
Portfolio time frame	1/Jan/2014 to 1/May/2014
Number of payments	4 (February 1st, March 1st, April 1st and May 1st)
Payment amount	100$

Example 1 - Amortized recurrent expense

Amount: 100$ (amortized)

Cost	4 x 25$ = 100$
Recurrence definition	Monthly on day 1, from 1/Feb/2014
Portfolio time frame	1/Jan/2014 to 1/May/2014
Number of payments	4 (February 1st, March 1st, April 1st and May 1st)
Payment amount	100$ / 4 = 25$

Expense details

When selecting an expense on the budget page, more information on that expense is displayed in the details panel on the right. This panel shows the expense detailed information:

Name
Type
Category
Amount
First and last payment dates
Recurrence definition
Calculated total cost
Reporter (the user who added the position)
Description
Attached files

You can also select multiple expenses or even a mix of positions and expenses at once by selecting multiple lines in the budget (by pressing and holding the Control key while clicking the positions and expenses). This gives you an aggregated view showing the total costs of the selected expenditures.

Attaching files to an expense

You can attach files to an expense in order to keep related documents handy (invoices, quotations, etc.). To attach files to an expense, select it and then click button Attach Files in expense details panel on the right. This will bring up a dialog where you can pick a file (or multiple files simultaneously, if your browser allows it) and enter an optional comment.

On this page:

Expense

Related pages:

Folio Budget