Budget automations

Budgets runs one scheduled job and reacts to the books as they change. Nothing here sends e-mail, posts an entry or blocks one. How the figures themselves are worked out is in How budget figures are counted.

Nightly job

Re-read the consumption of budgets in service

• When: once a day, in the night (the first run is set to 02:30 UTC on the day after installation), as long as the scheduled action Analytic Budgets: Re-read Consumption is active. It is active when the app is installed; a test or restored copy of the database has it switched off.
• What it does: takes the lines of the budgets that are open, superseded or closed and whose period covers the current day, and reads their actual amount again from the analytic entries, with the available amount, the consumption and the two flags that follow from it. It is the same as Re-read Consumption in the Actions menu of a budget line, done for all of them. It changes no planned amount and no stage.
• Why it exists: the figures already follow every entry posted, changed or removed through the usual screens. The job catches what those screens do not see, such as an entry corrected directly in the database or analytic amounts rewritten by an update.
• How to start or stop it: an administrator activates or deactivates the scheduled action Analytic Budgets: Re-read Consumption in the scheduled actions of the technical menu. When it is off, the figures still follow the usual screens; a line someone doubts is read again with Re-read Consumption.

Without a schedule

Immediate update when an entry moves

• When: each time an analytic entry is created, changed (its amount, date, company, account or analytic accounts) or removed, which happens when a bill, an expense or a journal entry is posted, edited or reset to draft.
• What it does: finds the lines of the budgets in service, superseded or closed that may count the entry, and computes their figures again in the same operation. Draft and cancelled budgets are left out; a draft budget is read in full when it is put in service. It works with full rights, so an entry recorded by someone without access to the budgets still updates them.
• How to stop it: it cannot be switched off; it is part of the app. Put a budget back to draft or cancel it to stop its figures from moving.

Messages on the budget

• When: a budget's title, responsible person, dates, Applies To, Enforcement or stage changes, and when a revision is issued.
• What it does: records the change in the budget's messages, with the old and the new value; on a revision, the original says which budget replaced it and the revision says which budget it revises, each with a link.
• How to stop it: it cannot be switched off; the messages are the history of the budget.