Set Up Programs and Budgets

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Create a program.
  
• Create a budget.
  
• Manage budget categories and periods.
  

Enter the Administrative Phase

You have some work to do before you begin accepting applications and making grant decisions. Set up programs and budgets in Salesforce first.

In this unit, imagine that your organization or agency is creating an antihunger funding program. Set it up in the system by creating a program and related budget, budget category values, and budget periods. 

Want to Get Hands-on with Grantmaking?

In this module, we show you the steps to manage the grantmaking lifecycle in Grantmaking. We don’t have any hands-on challenges in this module, but if you want to practice and try out the steps, you can register for a free Nonprofit Cloud and Grantmaking trial with sample data. A Trailhead Playground doesn’t have Grantmaking. Here’s how to get the free trial edition now.

1. Sign up for a free 30-day Nonprofit Cloud and Grantmaking trial.
   
2. Fill out the form completely.
   
3. After you fill out the form, click Submit. A confirmation message appears.
   
4. When you receive the activation email (this might take a few minutes), open it and click Verify Account.
   
5. Complete your registration by setting your password and challenge question. Tip: Save your username, password, and login URL in a secure place—such as a password manager—for easy access later.
   

You’re logged in to your trial org. Now add the budget component to the budget page layout.

1. From the App Launcher (), find and select Budgets.
   
2. Select the All list view.
   
3. Select any budget record.
   
4. On the budget record, click then Edit Page.
   
5. Drag the Budget component onto the page canvas.
   
6. Save your work and select Activate.
   
7. Click Assign as Org Default, then Next, then Save.
   
8. Click .
   

Your trial org is ready to follow along with the steps in this module.

Create a Program

Start by creating your program. Relate program records to budgets and funding opportunities to track your work in a particular area.

1. From the App Launcher (), find and select Grantmaking. Use the Grantmaking app for this entire module.
   
2. From the App Launcher (), find and select Programs.
   
3. Click New.
   
4. Specify these details:
   
   • Name: Access to Nutritious Food
     
   • Start Date: Today.
     
   • Status: Planned.
     
5. Save your work.
   

Optionally, you could also add an end date, summary, and additional context.

With your new program created, it’s time to create a high-level budget for it.

Create a Budget Record

Remember that budgets describe how much you give in monetary and nonmonetary quantities, broken down by categories for a particular time period. You can use them at the program, funding opportunity, or application level.

Budgets aren’t only for your internal use. You can also provide budgets as templates in a Grantmaking site in Experience Cloud. Grantseekers can use the templates when submitting their budget proposals. Using budget templates, applicants submit helpful, structured data as part of their applications.

For now, create an internal budget record for your program.

1. From the App Launcher (), find and select Budgets.
   
2. Click New.
   
3. Specify these details:
   
   • Budget Name: Access to Nutritious Food
     
   • Amount: 2000000. This budget is for $2,000,000 so you use the Amount field because it’s a monetary value. For nonmonetary budgets, like a number of hours or goods to distribute, use the Quantity field. To create a budget template, leave these fields blank.
     
   • Period Start Date: January 1 of this year
     
   • Period End Date: December 31 of this year
     
   • Program: Access to Nutritious Food
     
   • Type: Program
     
   • Status: Active
     
4. Save your work.
   

On the budget record, review the values and related lists. 

As the screen capture shows, the default related lists on the budget record include budget allocations, budget categories, budget periods, child budgets, funding awards, and funding opportunities.

Create Budget Category Values and Periods

You have the shell of a budget, now set budget periods and categories.

Categories include spending areas, like personnel or supplies. Periods represent the span of time in which you track the spending, such as monthly or quarterly. 

Before you can enter budget category values, you must have at least one category and one period. 

Start by creating two categories.

1. On the new budget record, find the Budget Category related list, and click New.
   
2. Specify these details about the category.
   
   • Name: Personnel
     
   • Optionally, you can add a description, reason, and sequence number. The sequence number value controls the order the category appears in the budget component. If you don’t enter a sequence number value, Grantmaking displays categories in the order they were created.
     
3. Click Save & New.
   
4. Specify these details about the next category.
   
   • Name: Supplies & Materials
     
   • Enter other optional details.
     
5. Save your work.
   

In the real world, you likely have other budget categories, but stop here and move on to creating a budget period.

1. In the Budget Period related list on the budget record, click New.
   
2. Specify these details about the budget period.
   
   • Name: Q1
     
   • Period Start Date: January 1 of this year.
     
   • Period End Date: March 31 of this year.
     
   • Sequence Number: 1. This value ensures that this budget period always appears first.
     
3. Click Save & New.
   
4. Add these details for the next budget period.
   
   • Name: Q2
     
   • Period Start Date: April 1 of this year.
     
   • Period End Date: June 30 of this year.
     
   • Sequence: 2. This value ensures that this budget period always appears second.
     
5. Save your work.
   

You can also click Save & New to enter Q3 and Q4 of this year, but skip that for now. It’s time to move on to budget values.

Enter Budget Values

Now it's time to solidify your budget with some real numbers.

Beware! When you submit your budget values, they become locked for edit. Make sure the values are finalized before submitting them.

You and your applicants can enter budget values using the budget component. You enter those details in Salesforce, whereas applicants use the Experience Cloud site to add budget details.

If this budget record is used as a template, don’t set any budget values. Associate the budget record to a funding opportunity, and leave the period and category fields for grantseekers to populate in the Experience Cloud site.

Enter some internal budget values using the same component on the budget record in Salesforce. Salesforce saves your entries as you enter values for each category and budget period. 

When everything looks perfect, click Submit Budget. It’s not possible to change the values after you’ve submitted them.

Track Actual Budget Spent

After you submit your budget, track spending against it using the Budget Allocation object. Allocations, along with related funding disbursement records, track all of the money or nonmonetary grants going to grantees. You learn more about these records later in the module.

You move on to funding opportunities in the next unit.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Budget Management
• Salesforce Site: Public Sector Solutions trial sign-up
• Salesforce Site: Try Nonprofit Cloud and Grantmaking free for 30 Days