# Budgets

Silkline's Budgets feature helps organizations track procurement spending against allocated budget amounts. Assign purchase order and request items to budgets, monitor firm and unfirm spend in real-time, and ensure budget owners review purchases through automatic approval routing.

<figure><img src="/files/IpZhImSdoB4Q9V8XQWhE" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Creating a Budget

To create a new budget:

1. Navigate to **Budgets** from the main navigation
2. Click **Create Budget**
3. Fill in the budget details:
   * **Name** — A unique identifier for the budget
   * **Description** — Optional details about the budget's purpose
   * **Amount** — The total budget allocation
   * **Currency** — The currency for the budget (can differ from order currencies)
   * **Include Taxes** — Whether budget tracking includes or excludes taxes
   * **Owners** — Optional users responsible for reviewing this budget

<figure><img src="/files/Wf4ZWPKzFxB8RYXCPnuG" alt="" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

{% hint style="info" %}
**Budget Owners** are automatically added to the approval workflow for any orders containing items assigned to their budgets. Owners do not control who can assign items to the budget.
{% endhint %}

## Reviewing Budget Spend

Each budget tracks spending across two categories:

| Spend Type       | Description                                                      |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Firm Spend**   | Committed spending from orders in OPEN or CLOSED state           |
| **Unfirm Spend** | Planned spending from orders in DRAFT, REVIEW, or APPROVED state |

The budget detail page displays a visual progress bar showing how much of the budget has been consumed:

<figure><img src="/files/8pFxLN7yKDvMOqMx0f6Y" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Utilization Colors

* **Green** — Under budget (utilization < 85%)
* **Yellow** — Approaching budget (utilization ≥ 85% and < 100%)
* **Red** — Over budget (utilization ≥ 100%)

{% hint style="warning" %}
Silkline displays warnings when budgets are over-allocated but does not prevent orders from being placed against over-budget budgets.
{% endhint %}

## Adding Budget to Line Items

Budget assignments happen at the line item level on purchase orders and requests:

1. When creating or editing a purchase order or request, locate the **Budget** column in the line items table
2. Click the dropdown for the line item you want to assign
3. Select the appropriate budget from the list

<figure><img src="/files/fcrnTYokDJDfeKTvUOno" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

The item's cost is immediately reflected in the budget's spend calculations. When requests are converted to orders, budget assignments carry over automatically.

Budget availability is based on whether the budget is active and the user's normal order or request permissions. A budget does not need an owner to be selected on a line item.

{% hint style="success" %}
**Best Practice:** Assign budgets at the request stage to ensure consistent tracking throughout the procurement lifecycle.
{% endhint %}

## Budgets in Approval Workflow

When order items are assigned to budgets, the budget owners are automatically included in the approval workflow:

* Budget owners appear as **Budget Approvers** in the approval chain
* Budget information and utilization is displayed in the approval guide
* If a budget owner already appears elsewhere in the approval chain, they are not duplicated

Budgets without owners can still be used for spend tracking, but they will not add a budget approver to the approval workflow.

<figure><img src="/files/3e4X7BkiBlLyBWj63mqu" alt="" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

For more information about how approvals work, see [Approvals](/for-customers/approvals.md).

## Viewing All Budgets

The **Budgets** page displays all budgets with key metrics:

| Column          | Description                                 |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| **Name**        | Budget name and description                 |
| **Budget**      | Total allocated amount                      |
| **Spent**       | Combined firm and unfirm spending           |
| **Remaining**   | Budget amount minus total spend             |
| **Utilization** | Visual progress bar showing percentage used |
| **Owners**      | Users responsible for the budget            |
| **Status**      | Active or Archived                          |

Click on any budget to view its detail page, which includes:

* **Spend Summary** — Budget amount, owners, and progress visualization
* **Order Items Tab** — All purchase order line items assigned to this budget
* **Request Items Tab** — All request items assigned to this budget

## Multi-Currency Support

Budgets support multi-currency operations:

* A budget can be in one currency (e.g., USD) while orders are in different currencies (e.g., EUR, GBP)
* Silkline automatically converts order item costs to the budget's currency using current exchange rates
* Spending is tracked in the budget's currency for accurate utilization reporting

## Common Use Cases

### Project Budgets

Track spending for specific projects or programs:

```
Name: Project Falcon - Prototype Build
Amount: $150,000
Owners: Engineering Lead, Procurement Manager
```

### Department Budgets

Set up budgets for each department or cost center:

```
Name: Manufacturing - Q1 2025
Amount: $500,000
Owners: Manufacturing Manager
Include Taxes: Yes
```

### Program Budgets

Track spending across multiple projects within a program:

```
Name: R&D - Fiscal Year 2025
Amount: $2,000,000
Owners: R&D Director, Finance Controller
```

## Enabling Budgets

Budgets must be enabled for your organization before the feature is available. See [Budgets Settings](/for-customers/profile-and-settings/organization-settings/budgets.md) for detailed configuration options including:

* Enabling/disabling the feature
* Creating and managing budgets
* Archiving and deleting budgets
* Permission requirements


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