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Budget Rules

Automate calculations and guardrails to ensure your budgets are accurate and follow organizational guidelines.

Overview​

Budget rules act as automated assistants that handle calculations and checks for you. They help prevent mathematical errors and ensure that every budget stays within its expected limits, such as requiring a minimum contingency or alerting a manager when a budget is too high.

How Rules Work​

Rules follow a simple When-If-Then pattern:

  1. When (The when): The event that starts the rule, such as when you update a field or create a new budget.
  2. If (The if): An optional check to see if the rule should actually run. For example, "If the total is over $1,000,000."
  3. Then (The then): What Compass does automatically once the conditions are met.

Common Automated Actions​

  • Auto-Calculate: Automatically fill in a field using a formula (for example, multiplying a quantity by a unit price).
  • Show a Warning: Give the user a heads-up if something looks unusual, like an unusually high cost.
  • Block Saving: Prevent the user from saving the budget if it breaks a critical rule, such as a missing required field or a budget that exceeds its limit.
  • Ask for Approval: Automatically feature the budget to the correct manager based on the total amount.

Setting Up Rules​

Step 1: Choose When to Run​

Go to the Rules tab on a catalog item. Rules are configured at the catalog item level and apply when items from that catalog are used in budgets. Most people use "On field change" so they can see updates in real-time as they type.

Step 2: Set Your Conditions​

Tell Compass exactly when this rule should apply. You can check if a field is Equal to, Greater than, or Contains specific text.

Step 3: Define the Result​

For calculations, use the builder to link your fields (e.g., Revenue * 0.35). For alerts, type the message you want the user to see.

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