The Budget Manager shows budget information in a spreadsheet format that gives you the ability to create many different types of budgets, with as much or as little detail as you need. In addition, you can bring the actual data from the general ledger into a spreadsheet program for analysis and revision. Security can be added to your budgets to prevent unauthorized users from viewing or tampering with the data.

Enterprise’s budgeting feature encompasses two different modules: General Ledger and Budget Manager. At some phases of the budgeting process, you use General Ledger; at other phases, you use Budget Manager.

For example, although the budget is created and posted using the General Ledger, in the interim you can use Budget Manager, to import the data to a spreadsheet. 

Here are some of the budgeting methods that are supported by the budgeting feature:

- Top-Down Budgeting. The budgeting feature allows you to increase or decrease the base figures taken from the general ledger by a given percent. The budget is then divided according to the responsibility segments that you designate, and the figures are distributed down to the appropriate manager or department head. After each manager receives their portion of the budget and makes the necessary adjustments, the budget data is checked back into the module for final approval before posting.

- Bottom-Up Budgeting. You can take the opposite approach to your budgeting and distribute the base figures directly to your departments and responsibility centers: when the managers finish entering their budget figures, the data is easily transferred back to the budgeting program.

- Straight Budgeting. Instead of extracting the base figures from the general ledger, you can enter an established set of budget dollar amounts and GL FlexKeys into the Budget Account Definition window. During the Budget Rollup, these figures are automatically distributed across the number of periods in your budget, and can be posted directly to the appropriate ledger and journal.