Overview
Group Class budgets allow you to build focused financial plans for specific segments within a group - such as regions, departments, or product lines - while maintaining overall consolidation alignment. This approach ensures accountability and ownership within each segment, yet still enables a unified group-level view once budgets are merged.
The core workflow for Group Class budgeting involves:
Preparing individual budgets by Group Class (e.g., US, UK, Sales, R&D).
Merging these Group Class budgets into a single consolidated Group Budget.
Step 1: Create a Group Class Budget
Open the Budget Interface
Navigate to Group Financial Planning then select Group Budget.
Start a New Budget
Click Add Budget to open the budget creation window.
Enter Core Details
Budget Name: Use a consistent and descriptive naming convention.
Group: Select the reporting group that contains the entities for this budget.
GRT (Group Reporting Template): Choose the template defining the account structure.
Set Timing and Format
Budget Year: Specify the financial year.
Budget Period: Choose Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, or Annual.
Amount Format: Select your preferred display option (Actual, K, M, B).
Enable and Assign Group Class
Toggle Group Class on.
Select a specific Group Class (e.g., US, UK, Sales, Product-Line-A).
The chosen Group Class determines which entities and data are included in that specific budget.
Create the Budget
Click Add to create the Group Class budget.
Enter and Adjust Amounts
Open the created budget and input amounts per account and period.
Use replication tools to copy values across periods if needed.
Switch between period views (monthly ↔ quarterly) to validate spreads and totals.
Save your changes.
Step 2: Merge Group Class Budgets into One Budget
Once individual Group Class budgets have been prepared, you can merge them into a single consolidated Group Budget for group-wide analysis and reporting.
Open the Budget Interface
Go to Group Financial Planning then select Group Budget.
Create a New Consolidated Budget
Click Add Budget, and fill in the basic details (Budget Name, Group, GRT, Year, Period, etc.).
Merge Existing Budgets
In the creation window, locate the Merge Budgets section.
Select the existing Group Class budgets you want to combine.
Once selected, the merged budget will consolidate all line items and period data from those individual budgets.
Review and Finalize
After merging, review the resulting consolidated budget to ensure all figures align.
Save and confirm once complete.
Note:
The Group Class toggle is intended for use when preparing individual budgets, not when merging them.
Once a budget is set to merge multiple existing Group Class budgets, the toggle becomes inactive - this is by design.
To successfully merge budgets by Group Class, first create and finalize all Group Class budgets individually, then perform the merge using the steps above.
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