Skip to main content
Documentation
Documentation
Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Review Budget Check Results for Spend Transactions

Review Budget Check Results for Spend Transactions

Review the results of the failed budget check for a spend transaction and decide how to proceed. Your choices depend on whether you configured the budgetary control to:
  • Warn if it failed budget check.
  • Control the budget and prevent transaction approval until it passes budget.
Workday only displays transaction lines that failed budget check in My Tasks, not transaction lines that met any
Pass
 or
Skip
 budget check rules.
The transaction on My Tasks can be subject to budgets across multiple companies and plan structures. Workday displays all budgets that a transaction fails to pass.
The
Check Budget (Financial)
 step of the procurement, expense report, or spend authorization business process performs the budget check for procurement and spend authorization transactions by:
  • Calculating commitment accounting for the transaction.
  • Comparing that unposted commitment to the various budgets that the transaction is subject to. For procurement transactions, the subprocess also compares that unposted obligation.
For procurement and expense transactions, you receive a task on My Tasks to review the failed budget check if:
  • There's insufficient budget for the transaction.
  • There's a journal error (such as posting accounting to an unopened ledger period).
If the transaction passes budget check, Workday bypasses this review step and the procurement or expense report business process completes the approval.
  1. Access My Tasks to review budget check.
  2. As you review the budget check on My Tasks, consider:
    Option Description
    Request Override
    Sends a request for overriding a failed budget check to an authorized approver. If an authorized approver grants an override, Workday displays an
    Override Granted
     status next to the budget check status on the transaction for all subsequent approvers. Once approved, the transaction moves forward to the next step in the parent business process.
    Control Periods
    The periods that Workday controlled budget against, which can differ by your budget entry periods. Example: You can enter budget amounts by month, but control by grouping the entire budget amount across a quarter or budget duration. A transaction can impact multiple budgets, which could have different control periods.
    Budget Check Option
    The budget check option that caused the transaction to fail budget check.
    • Warn
      : Permits you to continue with transaction approval without taking corrective actions to resolve the exception.
    • Control
      : Prevents transaction approval until there’s a revision to the transaction or budget that enables the transaction to pass budget check.
    Plan to Date
    If you configured the budget check option to use cumulative control periods, Workday determines the budget amount based on the current control period and any prior control periods.
    View
    For each budget, click to view the
    Budget Check Exceptions
     report.
    The report displays the impact of the transaction on the budget, and how much it's over budget. You can drill into the
    Current Transaction
     value to pinpoint what is causing the exception.
    If you access the report from global search for plans or plan hierarchies with company hierarchies, you must manually enter the full transaction ID on the
    Transaction
     prompt to select your transaction.
    Transactions
    Click this tab to view the transactions that failed this budget check.
    From here, you can drill into the transaction to see the amount and worktags associated with each line. The transaction also displays the
    Budget Check Status
    .
  3. If you have permission to view transactional journals, select
    Accounting
    View Accounting
     from the related actions menu of the transaction to access the accounting details.
  4. As you review the accounting details of the transaction, consider:
    Option Description
    Operational Journal Information
    Review the
    Accounting Date
    , which determines which journal period to post the accounting entries for the transaction, and the
    Ledger
     (commitment, obligation, or actuals).
    Journal Lines
    Review the impacted ledger accounts, debits and credits, and worktags. You can also see the budget date, which you can use to determine the budget amounts and control periods that this transaction is subject to.
  5. After you’ve reviewed the information about why the transaction failed budget check, take 1 of these actions:
    • Amend the budget.
    • If you budget check by budget date, change the budget date of the transaction so that all or part of the transaction hits a different control period.
    • Fix the journal error.
    • Send the transaction back to the requester for revision. Example: You send the transaction back to the requester because they requested too much.
    • Deny the request.
    • Continue with transaction approval anyway. You can only continue despite failing budget check if you configured budget check as
      Warn
      .
    Example: If you have submitted multiple purchase orders in a group, and only 1 of the purchase orders has insufficient budget, the group displays a budget check status of
    Fail (Insufficient Budget)
    . All 3 purchase orders within the group have pending status. Cancel the purchase orders, make any necessary corrections, and reissue them in 2 separate transactions.
  6. Return to My Tasks to review budget check and click
    Submit
     to rerun budget checking for the transaction.
Once the transaction passes budget, the procurement and expense report business process completes and Workday posts the accounting for the approved transaction:
  • For procurement transactions, Workday posts accounting to the commitment, obligation, or actuals ledger.
  • For expense reports and spend authorizations, Workday posts accounting to the commitment and actuals ledger.
  • For all transactions and to enable transactions to reserve budget, Workday posts accounting to journals in reserved posting status within the appropriate ledger after the initial budget check passes. Workday only posts accounting this way if you select
    Include Reserved Journal Lines
     on your plan.
Workday posts accounting to journals in posted status after the approval and completion steps of the business process.