Fund Balance Ownership: Budgets vs. Actuals

For funds that come into the University in FY23 and beyond, there will be a difference in where they appear and who is the owner of the funds.  For those units who have worked with BudgetUVA, you'll notice that funds will appear in actuals that didn't appear there in the past, as they were only managed through budget allocations.  

In the future state, you will own all the funds that you expect to own, and they will show in any fund balance reports you run.  Funds will be consistently transferred and it will be clear who "owns" the fund balance, as well as where the funds have been transferred and how much has been spent. 

Read more about fund ownership visibility on the blog. 

Here's how BUDGETS will look after go-live: 

• Your budget will come over from Workday daily starting August 17.  If someone in your team makes a change in the budget in Adaptive, it will come over to Workday the next day.
• The budget will tell you the plan, and only the plan.  Units will be responsible for ensuring that funds are available to support the expense.
• The budget (plan) allows you to monitor your spending against expectations using budget vs. actuals reporting (instead of the BBA report). 
• Budgets may be adjusted for a variety of reasons (new information, new initiatives, permanent adjustments, etc. )

Here's how ACTUALS will look after go-live:

• Actuals will be in Workday and will show the results of transactions made in Workday.  Actuals are pulled back into Adaptive after each month-end.  Operational reporting is in Workday and UBI.
• As a general rule, funding from central will be budgeted and then transferred in actuals to the recipient unit.  You will have both the budgeted and the actual transfer.  We will work with units on how to implement this. 
• Units will choose the extent to which they will transfer funding to subunits. 
• If units have both the funds transferred, along with any revenues received directly, they can utilize fund balance reporting. 

Want to see how this works in practice?  Check out Katie Walker's recent presentation to Fiscal Administrators in this video, starting at the 1 hr 10 min mark.  In this video, we walk through examples of undergrad tuition, professional development funds, and faculty start-up funding, and what reporting you use for each (fund balance reporting or budget to actuals reporting). 

Remember, the FST team will be working with units before the Workday Financials launch on how to implement this change, so you can expect to receive more guidance from your own leadership.

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Read about the GL Fund Balance Realignment Exercise (the transition of funds from Oracle over to Workday)