With the recent mid-year budget cuts from the state and next year’s budget process ramping up, the district must take steps to ensure that appropriate budgeting and spending habits are instilled with all budget managers. A feature of Lawson called budget edit checking will be implemented during the week of Spring break (sometime the last week of March and first week of April). This will have an impact on the way you process journal entries and spend money.
Budget edit checks are a system feature that authorizes expenditures based on available budget at the time an encumbrance is requested. In simpler terms, the Lawson system will prevent you from overspending your budget by checking that you have the budget authority prior to allowing you to release your requisition or purchase order. The edit will occur when you are either releasing a purchase order or a requisition when sufficient funds for your purchase are not available. The system is designed to display an error message indicating the amount you are overspent.
It is important that you take the time now to review your budget status summary reports on the Lawson dashboard and become familiar with your budget. As a steward of public funds, it is important to diligently manage budgets under your auspices. Ways to avoid budget edits will include monitoring monthly budget reports on your dashboard, submitting journal entries for corrections or changes that may be necessary, receiving prior approval when an unexpected cost is incurred that cannot be covered by your budget and communicating with the budget department or accounting when questions arise. Lawson financial reporting training is regularly offered on the PEP schedule listed on the professional development website, or contact Marianne Bigelow in Accounting Services for individual training.
Below are documents to assist you with this process.