When it comes to storing budget and spend information, Onit can do so at the overall level (life of the matter), monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Within any of these time ranges, Onit can optionally break up the data further by fees versus expenses or group it.
You should usually complete several configuration tasks for granular budgeting (life-of-matter, annual, quarter, etc.). Some of the rules below are hard-and-fast, while others are general recommendations/FYIs you should be aware of.
Apps Involved in Budgeting
Budgeting in Onit involves the cooperation of many different Apps. Below is a simplified breakdown of the important Apps in budgeting:
Matter
A Matter App Record represents one matter. Vendors and budgets can be assigned to the matter, and invoices can be billed against it.
Vendor
A vendor Record represents one vendor in BillingPoint that can be assigned to a matter. Once a vendor is assigned a Matter Record, a Matter/Vendor Record will be created in the Vendor Assignment to Matters App.
Budget
You can imagine the Records in this App as folders. Each budget "folder" holds various child Records called Budget Details. Each budget detail Record represents either a period (e.g., month, quarter, year) or fees or expenses related to the matter's life.
Vendor Assignment to Matters
Records in the Vendor Assignment to Matters represent vendor matter pairings. A Record will be created here once a vendor has been assigned to a Matter.
_total vs _amount Fields:
In the Vendor Assignment to Matters App, there are a set of Fields containing _total in their name and another set containing _amount in their name. It’s important to understand the differences between these two sets.
Any Field with _total in its name is aimed at the client. These Fields ultimately get their values from the child Budget App. They are intended to reflect the client's internal-facing budget values, which may or may not be appropriate to show to the vendor in BillingPoint.
Any Field with _amount in its name is aimed at the vendor. If you need to show the vendor a different budget value than the client tracks internally, use the _amount Fields to achieve this.
Note: Using the out-of-the-box plumbing in Gold, the budget_amount_vendor_currency Field is the only budget value sent to the BAR in BillingPoint.
Overall, the App Builder’s job is to ensure that these values are set correctly and that appropriate values are displayed to the client in Onit.