It is that time of year again: time to create next year’s budget. To celebrate, I will be focusing on this most important task for the next few weeks.
One of the more tricky concepts for budgeting is vacancies. But Escape Online makes this easy by determining where vacancies exist, automatically. How does it do this most wondrous feat? Check it out.
First, Escape Online looks at your positions to see what is filled and what is not (has available FTE). See how the position list below shows the Data Entry Clerk (position 1455) has 0.125 FTE available.
Escape Online determines the available FTE by subtracting the Used FTE from the Authorized FTE. Nice!
Now, let’s take a closer look at the used FTE.
Here are the assignments for that position. We see that Celeste has held the position for three years, using 0.25 FTE (or working for 2 hours a day).
Armed with this information, we can now go see what Escape Online loads into next year’s budget, both for Celeste’s position and for the vacancy.
Check it out!
Escape Online creates FOUR lines in budget to cover all of the information, giving you precise figures. Let’s look at each line:
- Line 1: This is the Available FTE being budgeted as a vacancy. (Notice the Type is V.)
- Line 2: Celeste only works for a few days in the first month of the year (August). Escape Online budgets these “pay actual days” separately.
- Line 3: Celeste works full-time for most of the year (September – May). Escape Online summarizes this monthly activity to make budgeting easier to read and understand.
- Line 4: Celeste only works for a few days in the last month of the year (June).
I am sure you will agree, Escape Online’s budgeting of vacancies (and salaries) is a truly wondrous feat!