In March 2022, you will have significantly more control over how you set and interact with matter budgets. This article explains what has changed and why.
**Essential Reading**
For a detailed list of all budget types available on Brightflag, please refer to the following help articles:
Prior to the enhancements:
A matter budget is applied the same to all vendors
There is no unassigned aspect to the budget (AKA hidden budget; internal budget; buffer)
Spend vs budget chart can only be viewed for the matter total
Unclear which budget is active. Inactive budgets are hidden in the ‘set budget’ dropdown. It’s unclear that toggling this dropdown leads to changing which budget is active.
Setting periodic budgets (monthly, quarterly, yearly) needed to be done separately.
Setting a total budget via the matter forms means there is no time period and therefore these budgets are ignored in financial budgets.
Phase budgets have inconsistent phase names across matters.
Budget history could only be viewed based on the active budget.
Budget overrun flags and the spend vs budget chart on the invoice review page were at a matter level.
Enhancements from March 2022:
A matter budget can be split out across vendors with any proportion. Vendors can only see their own budget.
An unassigned portion of the budget can be set for use as buffer/internal/placeholder and is hidden from the vendor.
Spend vs budget charts
These charts can be viewed by phase or for the current month, current FQ, current FY, or life-of-matter.
Vendor breakouts, unassigned budget, and budget overrun have a clear visual representation.
More spend detail is available, with sections for pending, approved, accruals.
Budget types
Setting a total budget via the matter forms will insert a default time period of 6 months from the matter creation date.
This means these budgets are factored into financial budgets forecasting and other reports.
After creating the matter, the user can choose to edit a budget properly on the budgets tab but is not required to, thus maintaining the most common point of entry for setting budgets.
6 months was chosen as the default period as it is the average time between matter creation and the last invoice date.
A full user experience refresh makes budgets setting a budget much easier.
When setting a phased budget name, suggestions/autofills are made based on previously used names.
Budget history is logged more conveniently and is more consumable.
Budget overrun flags are based on an individual vendor’s spend vs budget.
Vendor budget requests [link] act the same as before, with the exception of quarterly breakouts being automatically split out into monthly units.
