Load Budget Spreadsheets

Overview of FW25

The DDI Connect system allows you to upload budgets that can be used to track against income and expenditures within the FundWriter/GL system. To upload your budget, you must first put it in the correct format. If you do not have an existing budget spreadsheet, you can generate one from the DDI Connect system that will put the spreadsheet in the appropriate format for DDI Connect. You can do this by running 48 Budget Spreadsheet

If you have an existing budget spreadsheet that you wish to use, please note:

• The GL number must be present in the spreadsheet, so the system can match budget numbers to the correct GL number in the system. The import does not load the GL number - the system simply uses it for cross-referencing
• If you are loading a single annual budget amount for each GL number, you will need one column for the GL number and a second for the budget
• If your budget spreadsheet is broken out by month, you will need 13 columns at minimum - a column containing the GL number and a column for each individual period

To prepare your existing spreadsheet for loading into DDI-Connect, do the following:

• Open your original spreadsheet:

• Add a line at the TOP of the spreadsheet
• In each column, type the column number (i.e., 1, 2, 3, etc.) This will allow the system to identify the data to import:

NOTE: The "number" line must be LEFT justified, or the system will not recognize the column numbers

• Save the file using the sylk format:

You can have any columns in the spreadsheet that you wish. However, in order to import successfully, you need to make sure that:

• The GL account is in a single column
  • If your budget spreadsheet lists accounts broken out by segments, you will need to combine them into a single column prior to importing
• Each column containing data that you wish to import has a column number, so the system is able to locate and import the data

Now you are ready to upload into the DDI Connect system.

NOTE: The Load Budget Spreadsheets process will ONLY work with files that have the .slk extension. It will NOT upload .csv, .xls or .xlsx. If your budget is in excel format, open the file and do a Save As, then select the SYLK format

To upload the files to DDI-Connect:

• From the DDI Connect main menu, double-click FundWriter
• Double-click Administrative Tasks
• Double-click Load Budget Spreadsheets. You will see this screen:

• Fill in the location of the newly created file
• Choose whether to load for accounting periods or 1 number for the annual budget
• Choose whether to load the working budget or the approved budget or both
  • In most cases, you will want to select "Both"
• Choose the year
• Choose the number of the column in your spreadsheet that contains the G/L code
• Choose the number of the column that contains the first budget number
• Using the above example, the first number is in column 3
• Beside the line saying “Specify default account segments that do not appear in the spreadsheet”, click on the ‘clear’ button
• Enter the appropriate restriction class code if applicable
  • The revenue spreadsheets use restriction “2” and the expense spreadsheets use restriction “1”

Your screen should now look something like this:

If everything looks correct, click on the load button

After you have loaded a budget, you can run FW32 (Income Statement Report) to see what has been loaded:

• Select ‘current period and working budget’
• Enter the beginning and ending dates of the period
• Comparison method = Variance
• Select 5 of the 7 check boxes
  • The only boxes not checked are ‘Print zero balances accounts’ and ‘round figures to the nearest dollar’
• Click on ‘clear’ to clear previously entered G/L segments
• Start the report
• Examine the grand total value in the YTD Budget column
• Compare this amount to the total expected from the spreadsheet
  • If these 2 amounts are the same, the budget for this office and department was entered successfully
  • If these 2 amounts do not match, it is possible a G/L account included in the spreadsheet does not exist in the DDI-Connect system
• Compare the G/L account numbers on the report against the G/L account
• Add any missing G/L’s to DDI-Connect, along with their budget amount
• If there are no missing G/L’s, examine the totals in the spreadsheet to make sure they were added correctly

If the FW25 Load Budget Spreadsheets program needs to be re-run for an office-department-restriction class, contact DDI support.

• Repeat steps 10 thru 35 for all columns containing budget information in the spreadsheet
  • For each iteration, make the appropriate adjustment to the Starting Budget Column
  • For each iteration, make the appropriate adjustment for the Department

Repeat all of the above steps for each spreadsheet containing budget information