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- Budgeting & Forecasting
- Features
- Budget planning
Budget planning
Budget planning connects the annual or quarterly cycle to the people who own each part of the business. Budget cycles sets the calendar, baseline and submission dates. Budget entities define the departments and cost centers, while budget versions keeps each proposal separate from the final approved plan. Teams can work from a common starting point without losing the differences between what a department requested, what Finance negotiated and what the board authorized.
OverviewCFO Budget Decisions×
Budgeting & Forecasting · Budget planning
New
CFO Budget Decisions
Financial approval waits for the cfo
| Version | Submission revision | Step order | Approver role | Approver | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY27 approved plan, version 4 | 310 | 210 | CFO | Lena Fischer | Pending | |
| FY27 finance review, version 2 | 420 | 70 | CFO | Lena Fischer | Pending | |
| FY27 submission, version 1 | 380 | 550 | CFO | Pavel Novak | Pending | |
| FY27 submission, version 1 | 650 | 80 | CFO | Zara Mahmoud | Pending | |
| Q1 approved revision, version 2 | 450 | 310 | CFO | Pavel Novak | Pending |
6 of 6 records
FY27 approved plan, version 4Approvals · APP-12907
CFOSubmission revision310
Step order210
ApproverLena Fischer
StatusPending
What you can do
Start with a clear planning basis
FP&A Director chooses a reconciled prior-year actuals snapshot, prior budget or zero-based starting point. Create the budget lines for the intended accounts, entities and months, then retain the source and calculation basis. CFO sets Targets for the negotiation, including the correct units for revenue, costs and headcount. A target is a planning goal, not an approved commitment. Open Budget Cycles shows the active calendar and due dates so the team knows which submission window governs its work.
Give each team its own submission
Each Cost-Center Head works within an entity-specific draft. My Budget Submission shows the relevant version and status without exposing another department’s line amounts. A formula-driven line keeps its computed value alongside a permitted manual override, giving Finance the reason for a difference. Submission freezes the current revision and starts its assigned review. If a reviewer returns the proposal or its material assumptions change, keep the earlier revision and route the new one through the required decisions.
Keep the final decision attached to the plan
FP&A Analyst reviews the assigned submission, FP&A Director gives the planning decision and CFO approves the financial proposal. Pending Budget Approvals retains the actor and exact revision for each step. External board authorization remains separate evidence. Apply any board conditions to a draft revision, complete the financial route and record CFO verification of the resolution before locking V3. Later transfers and reforecasts retain their own identities; they cannot silently replace the numbers that were originally approved.
What your team sees
- My Budget Submission. Open the related work within your assigned scope.
- Open Budget Cycles. Open the related work within your assigned scope.
- Pending Budget Approvals. Open the related work within your assigned scope.
Rollout checks
Pilot one cycle with two departments and a returned submission. Compare each submitted revision with the consolidated proposal and the recorded decision. Test access through a copied record link as well as the normal workspace. Confirm that changing a draft cannot alter an approved baseline or reuse an earlier approval.
What it keeps track of
Data model- Budget cycles
- The annual or quarterly planning cycle. One Cycle per fiscal year per cadence (Annual, mid year reforecast, quarterly update). Status gates whether Versions inside it can still be edited.
- Budget entities
- Cost centers, departments, programs, and legal entities being budgeted. Hierarchical (Department rolls into Division rolls into legal entity). Mirrors and extends the chart of accounts dimension.
- Budget versions
- Versions within a Cycle. The audit-friendly chain — V1-Submission, V2-negotiation CFO, V3-board approved, mid year reforecast — so the trail of who proposed what and what the board approved survives.
- Budget lines
- The atomic line of the plan. Each cell keeps its version, period, account, entity and scenario. Budget cells are unique within that basis. Forecast cells additionally require rolling forecast and snapshot key; Actual cells require a reconciled ledger snapshot key. A comparison names its chosen bases explicitly instead of joining ambiguous latest rows. Published snapshots and locked plan amounts are immutable.
- Targets
- Top-down financial targets cascaded from CFO down to Entities. Revenue, op ex, EBITDA, and Cash by Entity by Period — the goalposts the bottom-up budget submissions are negotiated against.
- Approvals
- Approval-step audit trail for a budget revision or its specific budget transfer. Cost-Center Head submits; FP&A Analyst reviews, FP&A Director approves the planning review and CFO gives final financial approval. External board evidence is recorded separately by CFO. A transfer uses its configured Director/CFO route rather than approving the whole version again.
- Assumptions log
- Audit trail of every Driver, driver value, and driver formula change plus every budget transfer apply. The auditor’s source of truth for “what assumption produced what number when.”
Who uses it
Permissions- Cost-Center Head
- Prepares their own proposal.
- FP&A Analyst
- Reviews the assigned revision.
- FP&A Director
- Coordinates planning and CFO owns the final financial decision.
- Admin
- Maintains configuration.
Set up Budgeting & Forecasting your way.
Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.