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Office of Budget and Planning

Glossary

Common financial terms that you might hear while communicating with our department.

  • Budget Adjustment: The act of amending the budget by moving funds from one category or line item to another.
    • A temporary adjustment is a one-time transfer that affects the budget in the current fiscal year.
    • A permanent adjustment is a transfer that affects the budget in the current fiscal year and all fiscal years going forward.
  • Budget to Actual Report: Compares fiscal year-to-date (YTD) actuals (revenues and expenditures) against original and adjusted budgets.
  • Encumbrances: Funds set aside in MyBudget for a transaction that has yet to occur.
  • Expenditures: The recognition of the expending of resources of any fund group towards the objectives of that group.
  • Expenditure Transfer: The process used to move expenditures from one account to another.
  • Fiscal Year: The University's fiscal year begins June 1st.
  • Fiscal Year Close / "The Close": The series of processes performed in May and June of every year to finalize the financial information for the fiscal year in preparation for the University's annual financial statement audit.
  • General Ledger (GL): The general ledger of the University is a record of the University's budgeting and financial transactions.  The general ledger includes budget transactions, revenue and expense transactions, encumbrances, assets, liabilities and fund balances.
  • Opening Budget: Original budget allocation set at the beginning of the fiscal year.
    • An adjusted budget is the original budget allocation set at the beginning of the year plus or minus any temporary adjustments made during the fiscal year.
  • Transfers: Amounts moved between fund groups to be used for the objectives of the recipient fund group.
    • Mandatory transfers: debt service, loan funds, etc.
    • Nonmandatory transfers: at the discretion of the governing board

  • Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB): A method of budgeting in which all existing programs must justify all funds requested for each new fiscal year. Zero-based budgeting starts from "zero base" and every area within an organization is analyzed for its respective needs the related expense.