Account Group

A defined set of General Ledger Accounts used to apply calculations.

Adopted Budget

The final Budget Scenario used to load the Accounting System and publish to government agencies.

Aggregate Breakout

Some General Ledger Account budget amounts are the Aggregate or "Sum" of a group of other Accounts multiplied by an Assumption Factor. An Aggregate Breakout Account attempts to display the "Breakout" of the individual Account amounts that comprise the total. The group of accounts being aggregated is defined as an Account Group.

See also: Account Groups, Assumption, Assumption Calculation

Annualize

To convert a rate or value of any length into a rate that reflects the rate on an annual (Fiscal Year) basis

Approved Budget

The Budget Scenario approved by the School Board.

Assumption

Factors used to manipulate, model, or forecast a budget Scenario. Assumptions have "Trigger" elements that trigger a "Calculation" based on specific Element or Scenario conditions.

See Also: Assumption Trigger, Assumption Calculation, Persistent Adjustment

Assumption Calculation

A calculation that is performed from defined values in the Assumption Tree of ESP. These values are formal assumptions that play a large role in shaping the the overall Budget Scenario.

Assumption Trigger Value

A conditional statement in ESP that triggers when an Assumption Calculation must be made.

Benefit FTE Factor

Benefit Amount Factor. Used in the determination of Benefit qualification. An employee who fills multiple positions qualifies for benefits if the sum of their FTE Factor is above a defined percentage. Then BA Factor is the prorated factor or percentage used to Calculate the Benefit Plan cost for a specific employee record. For example:

A .8 FTE Employee is filling 2 positions charging different Budget accounts, each .4 FTE. The Total FTE for the Employee is .8. With a BA qualification threshold of .75, this Employee qualifies for benefits. THE BA Factor for each position would be .5, meaning the cost of the Benefit Plan should be split between the two employee positions.

Benefit FTE

Benefit FTE. The Sum of the FTE Factors of employees charging to a specific Element.

Benefit Amount Threshold

The Total FTE Factor an Employee needs to qualify for full Group Health benefits.

See Also: Total FTE

Budget Date

The Starting or Fiscal Date of the Budget. Typically, this is July 1st.

Element

An individual component that accounts for part of the entire Budget Element String.

See Also: Budget Element String

Element Distribution

The cost of an Employee's salary and benefits can be spread over a series of different Elements. Each unique Budget Element String assigned to an Employee is considered a Element Distribution.

See also Budget Element String

Budget Element String

The Element is the result of combining the organizational and financial accounting Elements into a single field. Within the Scope of the Budgeting System, the order of the Elements are:

▪Fund

▪Function

▪Location

▪Area

▪Projects

Budget Scope

A specific portion of a Scenario defined by selecting an individual, list, or range of Elements. Budget Scope can be applied to Financial as well as Employee information.

See also Budget Element String, Element

Budget Value

Budget Values carry forward the Model values into a new Scenario providing a reference back to the modeled budget.

See also Current Value, Model Value

COLA

Cost Of Living Allowance. An incremental factor for increases in the Salary Plans.

Contract Year

Contract Year is determined by adding the Salary Plan Work Days to the Salary Plan Contract Date.  If the Salary Plan Contract Date is missing or occurs before the Scenario Budget Date,  the Scenario Budget Date will be used as the Contract Start.

Current Budget

The Budget as it was loaded from the the Accounting and Human Resources System.

See also Current Amount, Model Amount

Current Value

A Current Value is the value loaded from the Financial/HR system when a Scenario is Created or Refreshes. With the exception of Forecast Scenarios, Current Values do not change during Recalculations or Creating a Scenario.

See also Model Values, Budget Value, Scenario, Forecast Scenario

Default Modeling Scope

During Budget Modeling it is common to work with the Scope set to Fund > Object, with Function, Location, Area and Project Summed.

See also Scenario Scope

Derived Account

Any Account ID that is included in an Assumption calculation is called a Derived Account because its value is derived from the calculation.

See also Roll-up Account

Derived Persistent Adjustment

Derived Persistent Adjustments are reapplied after the Assumption Calculation phase of the Scenario Recalculation. Derived Persistent Adjustments are automatically created for any Account ID that is included in an Assumption Calculation.

See also Persistent Adjustment

Employee Distribution

The Distribution Ratio of the Employee Record. It is calculated by dividing the individual FTE of the Element Distributions for the specific Employee Record by the sum of those records. Since Employees can fill multiple positions, the Distribution factor is specific to the Employee Record.

See also Element Distribution

FTE

Full Time Equivalent of an Employee

General Fund

A group of funds that constitute the total operating budget of the organization. These include funds 100,101,104.

General Fund

In public sector accounting, the primary or catchall fund of a government, government agency, or nonprofit entity such as a school or university. It provides the resources necessary to sustain the day-to-day activities and thus pays for all administrative and operating expenses. When governments or administrators talk about 'balancing the budget' they typically mean balancing the budget for their General Fund.

General Ledger (GL) Account

A general ledger account is the basic or minimal element required to record, sort and balance accounting transactions. Examples of General Ledger Accounts include the Asset accounts such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, Investments, Land, and Employee Costs, Equipment Purchases, etc. Examples of the general ledger liability accounts include Notes Payable, Accounts Payable, Accrued Expenses Payable, and Customer Deposits.

Hierarchical Tree

Hierarchical trees arrange information into categories which describe them from general to increasingly specific characteristics. For example, Fund, Function, Location, Area, Object, and Project. This hierarchy allows users to "drill down" among a large amount of information to find precisely what they need. As users drill down the tree, they increasingly narrow their selection.

Inflation Factor

A single factor used to roll-up the Inflation Roll-up Account group Account when Modeling a Scenario.

See also Account Group

Model Value

A Model Value is the result of applying Adjustments or changing Assumption Factors and recalculating the Scenario. Unlike the Current Values, Model Values can change with every action.

See also Current Values, Scenario

Persistent Adjustment

Persistent Adjustments are special types of Adjustments that are reapplied after the Roll-up and Derived Elements are updated during a Scenario Recalculation. During Scenario Recalculation, before Employee costs are rolled-up to the financial budget, all the Budget Items whose Account Element is in the Salary Roll-up Account Group are zeroed out.  The values are then updated with the recalculated Employee costs.  Because these values are overwritten during each recalculation, two special types of Adjustments are used that are reapplied during Scenario Recalculation: Roll-up Persistent Adjustments and Derived Persistent Adjustments.

See also Roll-up Persistent Adjustment, Derived Persistent Adjustment

Proposed Budget

A Budget Scenario sent to the School Board for approval.

Roll-up Account

A Roll-up Account is an Account that belongs to an Account Group such as the Salary Roll-up Accounts, that have their Model Values updated during Scenario Recalculation.

See also Derived Account

Roll-up Persistent Adjustment

Roll-up Persistent Adjustments are reapplied separately after the Employee Roll-up phase, but before the Assumption Calculation phase because the Assumption Calculations need to include Roll-up Persistent Adjustment Values in their calculation. Roll-up Persistent Adjustments are created automatically for any Adjustment to an Account Id in the Salary Roll-up Account group.

See also Derived Persistent Adjustment

Salary Plan Code

The Salary Plan Code is the result of combining the Plan, Grade and Step Id codes of the Human Resources Salary Plan into a single field. Within the Scope of the Budgeting Systems, the element order is:

1.Plan

2.Grade

3.Step

Scenario

A single Model of a Budget.

Scenario Scope

A specific portion of a Scenario defined by selecting an individual, list, or range of Elements. Also referred to as Budget Scope.

See also Budget Scope, Budget Element String.

Total FTE

The sum of the FTE Factors of an individual Employee's Active Records.

See also FTE, Benefit FTE

Tree

See Hierarchical Tree.