Managing budgets in Spark

This feature is currently in Beta. To access the new budgets experience, or to create budgets, please contact your Client Success Manager.

Budgets allow you to limit company spending for different parts of your program. Your company may have several budgets set up to cover different types of corporate spending. This article will help you update your budgets when approaching or reviewing budget limits.

Budgets are typically standard or custom. Right now, the edit feature is only available to clients with standard budgets. Before continuing, go to Manage > Budgets and select Edit next to any of your budgets. If you’re unable to edit one of your budgets, you’ll see a banner at the top of the page and editable fields are greyed out. This indicates you have custom budgets and should contact the support team for any required modifications.

In this article: 

• Before you begin
• Edit budget data
• Budget History
• Email Notifications
• Admin Action Items
• Budget reports in Benevity Reporting
• Related Resources

Before you begin

Anyone with the budget manager role can view and edit budgets in Spark. All current change signatories are automatically assigned the budget manager role. Program admins with the role manager role can assign the budget manager role to other users in the future.

You must have the standard budget setup. Learn about how to view your budgets and understand standard budget basics before making any changes. Edit functionality may be unavailable due to custom budget configuration.

You can submit a support request to:

• Learn about your budget tags and associated transactions.
• Review and restructure your budgets to align with standard practices.
• Create or delete a budget.
• Change budget rules if you cannot edit/modify your budgets. 

Review budget reports in Benevity Reporting to answer additional company spending questions.

Edit budget data

To learn more about each budget and to edit budget data:

1. Go to Manage > Budgets.
2. Choose a budget and select Edit on the same line.

You can make the following changes to your budgets:

1. Budget amount

Budget amount is the amount authorized for a budget, also known as the corporate limit. If there is an amount, transactions associated with the budget will not be accepted or processed once the Budget amount is reached. You can increase or decrease an amount at any time. Unlimited Budget amounts do not limit transactions.

2. Per user amount

Per user amount is the budget amount an individual user has access to. If there is an amount, matching or volunteer rewards will not be processed for that user once the amount is reached. You can increase or decrease an amount at any time. An unlimited amount does not limit user transactions.

3. Budget auto-renewal

Choose whether your budget auto-renews the following year. If enabled, the renewal budget is automatically created 30 days before the previous one expires. 

If you are within the 30-day period, you can still enable auto-renewal any time before the budget expires. The new budget is created at midnight (UTC). 

The renewal budget copies the previous budget values set 30 days prior to renewal. The following fields are copied:

• Currency
• Budget type
• Timezone
• Per user amount
• Budget amount
• Budget tags

The renewal budget end date is one calendar year from the renewal date. For example, if the start date is June 1, 2022, the end date is June 1, 2023. Budget usage is reset to zero on the renewed budget.

If a budget is not auto-renewed, employees impacted by the budget will not receive the associated matching or volunteering rewards in the next fiscal year.

4. Change between a specified amount and unlimited

If you want to change a Budget or Per user amount from an amount to unlimited, or vice versa, contact the Support team.

We recommend that changes like this should be done within the 30-day period before the budget is active to avoid reporting complications. 

Budget History

To confirm changes to a budget, edit your budget rules and select Save Changes. The following budget updates are captured in Budget History:

• User amount update
• Budget amount update
• New budget is created
• Auto-renewal setting changed

The Budget History log includes:

• Date of the update
• Updated by user

  • The user is Benevity if a Benevity team member performed the update. Benevity - Automation is the username for an automated process.

• Action taken
• Description of the update

Email Notifications

To keep you informed of any budget changes and usage, all users with the Budget manager role will receive the following notification emails:

• If a budget is expiring and will not auto-renew, a notification is triggered 30 days before the budget end date. Review and confirm the budget renewal rules.
• If a budget is set to auto-renew, a notification is triggered 30 days before the budget end date. Review and confirm the renewal budget and per user amounts.
• If a budget has been updated, you’ll receive details of the changes right away. Review the changes for any errors. Additionally, any change signatories in your company will also receive budget change emails to ensure the entire team is informed.
• If it is the last day of a calendar quarter, you’ll receive a summary of budget usage over the quarter. Review or make changes to the budget rules if necessary.
• If budget usage has exceeded the 60%, 70%, 80% or 90% threshold, or reached 100% usage, you’ll receive an email on the first day of the following month. Review the budget amount and increase it if necessary.
• If a budget is or is not going to auto-renew. You are notified 30 days prior to the budget expiry date. Review your renewed budgets and make necessary changes before the start date. 

As a budget manager, you cannot opt out of notifications as these are mission-critical, system-generated notifications that are key to the smooth running of a CSR program.

Admin Action Items

To keep you informed of your budget usage, all users with the Budget manager role will be notified with Action Items on the Admin Dashboard. These notifications are generated in the following cases:

• If budget usage has exceeded one of the following thresholds: 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%. Review the budget amount and increase if necessary.
• If a budget has reached 100% usage. Review the budget amount and increase it if necessary.
• If more than one budget has reached a threshold, Budget managers will be informed of the number of budgets, along with the highest % used value.

Select Take Action to go to Budgets.

Notifications will only be removed from the dashboard when the budget usage is below the 60% threshold. Check the Admin Dashboard throughout the month for notifications that a threshold has been reached.

Budget reports in Benevity Reporting

The below reports supplement information viewed in budgets. They are accessed through Benevity Reporting.

• Budget Usage
  Similar to the information viewed in Budgets.
• Budget Usage by Transaction
  A line-by-line breakdown of the transactions that are drawn down from each budget.
• Budget Usage by User
  The amount of budget that has been used from each budget line, per user.
• Matching Campaign Usage
  This report shows Matching budget types and any additional matching campaigns that have been set up throughout the year. The "draws from budget" column indicates if the campaign transactions are associated with a budget. If they are not, the campaign is stand-alone and does not draw down from a budget.

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