Office of Fiscal Planning and Analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
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General/Auxiliary Funds - Budgets
The following questions and answers were assembled to provide information to departments regarding how budgets will be managed in the SoarFin General Ledger. This document focuses on General and Auxiliary Fund Budgets (budgets with Fund Codes beginning with a 10, 12, or 13).
If departmental personnel have been to training, they can get a logon and password to the SoarFin General Ledger that will allow them to inquire online, view the status of their budgets, and see transactions that have been processed against the budget in real time. Departments will not be able to change their budget online. A Budget Revision Form with the appropriate approvals will need to be submitted to revise budgets.
An organization budget can be linked to an existing appropriation budget or stand-alone. The organization budget will show budget categories at a more detailed level than that of an appropriation budget. Budgets will be displayed by the major categories: Salaries, Wages, Fringe Benefits, Travel, Contractual Services, Commodities, Equipment, Capital Outlay (library only), Purchases (auxiliary only), Mandatory Transfers, and Nonmandatory Transfers.
Yes. For General and Auxiliary Fund budgets, there will be an organization budget linked to an appropriation budget. This does not mean the budget is doubled. It just means the budgets are linked, and they should equal each other in total. The only difference will be the level of detail.
Organization Budget | |||||
Major Categories | Budget | Pre-Encumbered | Encumbered | Expended | Remaining Budget |
Salaries | $100,000 | $90,000 | $10,000 | ||
Wages | 10,000 | 9,000 | 1,000 | ||
Fringe Benefits | 30,000 | 35,000 | -5,000 | ||
Travel | 5,000 | 1,000 | 1,000 | 3,000 | |
Contractual Services | 5,000 | 2,000 | 4,000 | -1,000 | |
Commodities | 5,000 | 3,000 | 2,000 | ||
Equipment | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,000 | -1,000 |
Totals | $155,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 | $143,000 | $9,000 |
Related Appropriation Budget |
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Major Category | Budget | Pre-Encumbered | Encumbered | Expended | Remaining Budget |
Personal Services | $130,000 | $125,000 | $5,000 | ||
Other | 25,000 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 18,000 | 4,000 |
Totals | $155,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 | $143,000 | $9,000 |
NOTE: The Personal Services category is comprised of the budget categories of Salaries and Fringe Benefits. The Other category is comprised of all remaining budget categories. These categories include Wages, Travel, Contractual Services, Commodities, Equipment, Capital Outlay (library only), Mandatory Transfers, Nonmandatory Transfers, and Purchases (auxiliary only).
In this example, note that the department exceeded the budget amount for the Fringe Benefits and Contractual Services categories in the organization budget. In addition, this department did not even have funds budgeted in the Equipment category but had expenditures that were charged against that budget category. However, this is not a problem since the categories are combined in the appropriation budget, and the department still has sufficient funds in the related categories of Personal Services and Other.