7 Manage Budgets

Merchandising uses budgets to manage forecasts, expenses, and expected losses.

Manage Budgeted Shrink Rates

Budgeted Shrink is an optional function of the Merchandising stock ledger that allows you to accrue shrink based on a percentage of sales. You can input an initial budgeted shrink value for use by the stock ledger, and can also update it manually after implementation, if desired. When budgeted shrink is turned on in stock ledger, the monthly processes will accrue an amount of shrink at a subclass location level based on the net sales in the period and the budgeted shrink % value. The completion of unit and value stock counts will recalculate the budgeted shrink percentage value based on the actual shrink determined as part of the stock count. This value is then used until the next unit and value count. You can overwrite the calculated budgeted shrink value, if desired.

Budgeted Shrink is a value held on records that are created and managed automatically by Merchandising processes, so maintenance of a budgeted shrink value can be done by users, but records on the table where the budgeted shrink is held cannot be added or deleted. These updates are done through spreadsheet download and upload processes, which are accessed through the main Merchandising task list under Foundation Data > Download Foundation Data and Foundation Data > Upload Foundation Data.

To modify Budgeted Shrink, select the template type of Financial Control from the Download Data screen and then the template Half Data Control. When downloading records, you can optionally filter on department, set of books, or location to limit the number of records to those you are interested in updating. Click the Download button and, when prompted, choose to either open the .ods file that is generated or save the file and open it separately in the spreadsheet application of your choice.

Once opened, there is a single sheet with several fields that can be modified. The sheet will show all the existing Half Data Budget records in the system currently organized by Department, Half, Location and set of Books.

Update a Budgeted Shrink %

If you would like to update the Budgeted Shrink % for any department/location, enter or update the value in the Shrinkage % column, and enter the value “Update" in the Action column. Any line uploaded with an Action of Update will make any changes that were included. You can also update the Markup % and Markdown % columns in this table, but these are optional.

Upload Changes

Once all the updates have been made to the data in the spreadsheet, save the file and close it. Then, return to the Merchandising screens and select Foundation Data > Upload Foundation Data from the main task list. In this screen, you'll again select the template type Financial Control and the template Half Data Control. This will generate a process description automatically, but this can be updated if desired. Lastly, you'll select the Browse button and navigate to the directory where you saved the updated spreadsheet.

To review the status of the upload and check whether any errors occurred, select the Foundation Data > Review Status task from the main task list.

Manage Monthly Budgets

Merchandising allows you to enter month-by-month data for budget forecasts. The system contains one record for each department/location/half/month combination within the company. New records are added when a new location or department is added to the system or in the end-of-half processing which adds rows for the new half for all department/location combinations. Users can update the budget values, but cannot add or delete records as these are maintained by system processes.

To update budget values, you will select the template type of Budget from the Download Data screen and then the template Monthly Budget. Filters exist on Department, Set of Books, and Location in order to download a subset of records, so optionally you can make filter selections if desired. Next, click the Download button and, when prompted, choose to either open the .ods file that is generated or save the file and open it separately in the spreadsheet application of your choice. Once opened, there will be a sheet that where budgets can be modified.

Update Monthly Budget Values

If you would like to update any budget values for a record, navigate to the appropriate row where you would like to make your updates and set the action to Update. The following columns can be updated:

• Opening Stock (Retail and Cost)

• Purchases (Retail and Cost)

• Returns to Vendor (Retail and Cost)

• Net Sales (Retail and Cost)

• Clearance Markdowns (Retail)

• Permanent Markdowns (Retail)

• Promotional Markdowns (Retail)

• Shrinkage (Retail and Cost)

• Employee Discounts (Retail)

• Closing Stock (Retail and Cost)

• Gross Margin

You cannot add records or delete records, but it you want to remove existing budget values, you can set the cells to blank and then upload the updates.

Upload Changes

For all actions defined above, once all the updates have been made to the data in the spreadsheet, save the file and close it. Then, return to the Merchandising screens and select Foundation Data > Upload Foundation Data from the main task list. In this screen, select the template type Budgets and the template Monthly Budgets. This will generate a process description automatically, but this can be updated if desired. Lastly, select the Browse button and navigate to the directory where you saved the updated spreadsheet.

To review the status of the upload and check whether any errors occurred, select the Foundation Data > Review Status task from the main task list.