Use of funds in campaigns

Introduction

If your organisation uses funds in Plan Campaigns, you can see your available budget while you plan a campaign and request money from it in the same place. The Fund overview widget in the campaign item shows what you have, what you are asking for, and what would be left afterwards, before you save anything.

Requests are approved separately from the campaign itself, through a dedicated fund status. This guide explains what you see in the widget and what happens after you submit.

How it works

What the widget shows

Open a campaign item that includes the Fund overview widget. For each fund available to you, it shows four values:

• Total budget: everything allocated to your location.
• Remaining budget: what is left after previously approved claims.
• Current request: the amount in the cost element of this campaign, for example your reimbursement amount.
• Remaining after the request: what your balance would be if this request is approved.

The last value updates as you type, so you always know whether you are within budget before you save. Which funds appear depends on the location assigned to the campaign. Funds whose period has ended no longer appear.

The widget itself is read only. You change the amount you are requesting by editing the cost element in the campaign, not in the widget.

Setting up a Fund widget in Template builder

Fund status

Alongside the values sits the Fund status. This is separate from the campaign status and controls the money only.

• Pending review: set automatically as soon as you enter or change the requested amount. Your request is waiting for a decision. You cannot change this status yourself.
• Needs change: an administrator has asked for something to be adjusted. Make your change, then set the status back to Pending review to signal that you are done.
• Approved: the request has been approved and the amount has been deducted from your fund. The request is not anymore possible to be changed.
• Rejected: the request has been declined. Nothing is deducted.
• Pending available funds: your request is larger than the money left in the fund.

Only administrators can approve or reject. As an end user, the one status change available to you is moving Needs change back to Pending review.

Fund widget in Campaign detail

When your request is larger than your budget

If administrators approve the campaign asking for more than the fund can cover, the status changes automatically to Pending available funds. Nothing is deducted, but your entered amount is kept, so you do not lose your work.

From here you have two options. Lower the requested amount to fit within the remaining balance and save again, and the status returns to Pending review. Or wait: if your administrator adds money to the fund and the balance now covers your request, the status moves back to Pending review on its own.

After approval

Once a request is approved, the cost element is locked for you and can only be changed by an administrator. The same applies to a rejected request. If your cost element is calculated from other fields, those fields are locked too, so the approved amount cannot be changed indirectly.

If an administrator later moves the status away from Approved, the deduction is reversed and the money returns to your fund. Deductions never stack up: if a request is approved, sent back and approved again, only the current amount is taken.

Finding your requests

Best view to find overview of all submitted campaigns and the information about ongoing budgets is to use Fund dashboards. Fund status is also available as a filter in the campaign list, in the sub-items widget and in list view.