Using the Budget and Forecast Manager

Budget Overview

The Budget and Forecast Manager uses historical bills to create a benchmark for comparing current fiscal year billing data. Budgets and forecasts are combined into one feature for ease-of-use. Budgets are used to benchmark total cost; forecasts benchmark usage and unit cost. For ease-of-reference, this manual and EnergyCAP often refer to budgets and forecasts collectively as budgets.

The Budget and Forecast Manager allows you to:

Create detailed budgets and usage forecasts

Modify the budget and usage forecasts as the year progresses

Produce a variety of budget reports

A budget is calculated on a month-to-month basis at the meter level and includes:

Cost

Usage (expressed in common units for each commodity)

Unit cost per meter per month

Most users create a single “Master” budget that includes all buildings and meters. The budget can later be modified for any meter, building or place node on the Facility Manager tree.

Meter budgets are "rolled up" to be available at every level on the facility tree

Budgets are broken down by commodity

The most recent 12 months of bills are used to determine unit cost budget

The advantage of creating and maintaining a single Master budget is that future versions of EnergyCAP will allow you to compare actual bills with the budget, and display actual vs. budget PowerViews charts. These features will pull budget values from a single fiscal year budget designated as the Master budget.

It is also possible to create separate budgets, filtering by topmost place and commodity. This means that you can create one budget for the fire department and another budget for the administrative building. You can even create a budget for a specific geographical area and/or for a specific commodity. The disadvantage of separate budgets is that in future EnergyCAP releases you will not be able to run audits on non-Master budgets or display them in Facility Manager PowerViews charts.

For additional information on budgets, watch the Advanced Video:

WATCH ADVANCED VIDEO

Creating a Budget

Budgets can be created in the EnergyCAP application using the Budget Wizard. Follow the instructions below to create a new budget:

NOTE: It is also possible to import a budget using a specially-formatted .csv file. For more information, see the Administrator import options.

Go to Analysis Manager (Click Analysis>Budgets).
Click Budget>New>Budget. The Budget Wizard window will open.
Input the Budget Code and Display name for the budget in the fields provided. Each budget is required to have a Code and a Display. These fields identify the budgets in areas of EnergyCAP such as PowerViews and reports. The comment field is optional; the comment will be displayed from the budget display pane in EnergyCAP. Examples of comments include:
Initial Fiscal Year Projections
Adjusted for Budget Office
Input the budget starting fiscal month and year in the fields provided.
Input the Amount of Historical Bills to be used for budget determination (1, 2 or 3 years). Basing the budget on more than one year of data is recommended when there may be gaps in billing data or when a single year of bills does not represent a realistic benchmark of expected cost and consumption.
NOTES: The most recent 12 months of bills are used for meters that have multi-month bills, for example, in a situation with quarterly billing, the last four bills would be used. When multiple bills exist for one month, it will generally be appropriate to average them together.
Select the Usage Method from the options provided. Options include Average Usage, Highest Usage, Lowest Usage and No Average, Use Latest. This last option uses the latest bills available for each calendar month. For No Average, Use Latest, it is possible to specify a two-year historical window for budget creation, but when one month has bills for both this year and last year, only the most recent will be used (the two bills will not be averaged).
If this is a Master budget, click the Master Budget checkbox and then identify the fiscal Budget Year.
A Master budget is one that is a candidate for use in PowerViews and budget-based audits. If it is a Master budget, it will be created for all meters. If this is not a Master budget, click the Set Filters button to set topmost place and commodity filters.
NOTE: The fiscal year (FY) is the year that the LAST budget month falls in, so the Jul 08 to Jun 09 budget year is FY09.
When done setting budget options, click the Generate button. Generating the budget may take up to an hour, depending upon the number of meters associated with the organization. If EnergyCAP accesses the database via Internet, it may take much longer, and should be generated overnight. The budget will be created and displayed by commodity.

Viewing and Editing the Budget

To view budget details:

Click the View/Edit Budget tab at the bottom of the Budget and Forecast Manager window.

Then enter the starting month and year for budget comparison in the fields provided. The budget is displayed in green and the current or comparison year is in blue. It is most common to display the budget on a running cumulative year-to-date basis. Uncheck the Graph Budget YTD checkbox to display the budget graph month by month.

NOTES:

Use the Facility budget Tree View to select a meter or to roll-up data at any place node.

The tabs at the top of the window enable viewing of data or graphs for budget cost, forecast usage or projected average unit cost.The amount of departure from budget is displayed. Negative numbers means there is a budget deficit, positive numbers indicate a surplus.

To revise the existing budget:

Click the View/Edit Budget tab at the bottom of the Budget and Forecast Manager window.
Select the desired node of the Facilities budget TreeView and click the Revise Existing button. the Revise Forecast window will open.
Make desired changes. Budget modification options will vary depending on whether a Place node or Meter is selected. Follow the budget modification rules below.
When done, click Calculate and Save. EnergyCAP will then update all meters associated with the selected site.

Budget Modification Rules

The blue columns can be edited while the yellow (calculated) column cannot.
When revising the budget for a single meter, enter cost values directly into a (blue) month cell if desired.
Note that the default Reason for Change for a meter budget is Usage. The default Reason for Change for a building-level budget (or higher) is Unit Cost.

It is possible to retain usage and revise the cost, or retain cost and revise the usage.
Change a budget by applying a percentage change (10.0 means a 10% increase, -5.0 means a 5% decrease.) You can also force closure to a set bottom line total when, for example, the annual total is mandated to be $3,000.

it is possible to control which months the change will be applied to by checking or unchecking the Include checkbox for the months. To select/unselect all months, just click the Include column header.

QUESTION: Is it possible to force budget closure for a specific usage for a specific site?

ANSWER: In the EnergyCAP program, you cannot force budget closure to a specific USAGE based upon a kWh cost/unit for a site. However, it is relatively simple to force closure to a dollars and cents bottom line. EnergyCAP will automatically adjust usage for all meters associated with the selected site to meet the $$ budget requirement. Remember that budgets in EnergyCAP are always created and revised meter by meter and can then be ‘rolled up’ at any level of the organization for viewing/reporting.

The easiest way would be to take an existing budget and simply revise it (View/Edit Budget tab in the Budget Manager). Simply select the desired budget from the budget list, and the desired site from the facility hierarchy in the Budget Manager, and then click the Revise Existing pencil button-icon, per the instructions above. Select the Force Closure of Bottom Line to X Dollars option and input your desired site budget in the field provided. Then click Calculate and Save. EnergyCAP will then update all meters associated with the site, weighting the budget change proportionally to existing budget usage values.

Creating a new Budget Version

The New Version feature is a Save As operation. It provides a second copy or “version” of a budget so you one version may be edited while keeping the original intact.

A new version must be created from an existing version. To create the new version:

Hghlight the desired budget version from the budget list.
Click the View/Edit Budget tab.
Click the New Version button. The Revise Budget window will open.
Input the new version budget Code and Display, optional Comment and Version. Then click the Create New Version button. The new version will be created.

Budget Reports

Budget Reports give you numerous formats and options. To access budget reports:

Navigate to the Report Manager (Reporting > Reports).
Select Budget Reports folder from Installed Reports Tree. The example below is from EnergyCAP web reports. The EnergyCAP Enterprise Report Manager is quite similar in appearance.

budget reports1.JPG

For more information on Budget Reports see the Report Manager Overview.