Budget Control Evaluation

There is an exception to the budget control evaluation that can be viewed as ‘no worse off than before’. There is an Application Parameter (APPCTRL) to turn on or off this feature called BUD_NO_WORSE_OFF.

With this exception, the system provides the capability to only issue a budget control error when the activity from a transaction has caused a budget control to be in further violation of a budget control.  To determine this, the application compares the calculated control after an update with the calculated control before the update.  If the record is more in violation after, then logic to issue the error with the appropriate severity occurs.  However, if the constraint is found to not have changed or is in better shape but not completely out of a violated state, then no error is issued for the constraint and budget line.

The system invokes budget control errors when a validation or submit action is performed. When the Submit Phase is Pending, the system reads the Include Pending flags on Budget Tracking Amounts. If a relevant flag is not checked, evaluation of a control with updates from a current transaction uses all amounts defined into the control plus the amount of that current transaction as if it were not going to workflow.  If the flag is checked, then in addition to the amounts in the prior scenario, the current amount of all pending updates from other transactions is used.  Note: It is important not to select an Include Pending flag and define that same pending amount into a control.  This double counts pending dollars.

If transaction infrastructure does find a matching workflow rule for the current transaction, then the application records a pending update and not an accepted one for the current transaction. The transaction will then exist in pending transaction phase. If an approver chooses the reject action, the pending amount update is backed out. When final approval is applied, the pending amount is backed out and the budget control evaluation process re-evaluates the control.  

If the Submit phase on Transaction Control for the given Transaction code is set to Pending, then errors related to the below scenarios will not be issued on validate, until the final approval is applied. This means that errors will be issued only when transaction is transitioning from pending to final.

The scenarios in which errors will not be issued on validate, when the Submit phase is Pending is as follows:

• Controls that are marked Advanced Controls on the Budget Control Administration (BCADM) page. These controls have a greater than (>) or lesser than (<) in the calculation such as Control ID 4.

• The control has a linked amount, such as Linked Collected Earned Revenue, directly in the control or included in another amount in the control.

• The control has child sum amount from budget lines at a lower level or allotment lines such as Child Current Budget (Control ID 24 and 33 as examples).

If allotment accumulation is set up and if a transaction is processed against an earlier allotment period than the current one, the application steps through the budget control evaluation process for two or more allotment lines: from the allotment period of the transaction and the current allotment period.