Set Up Your Fiscal Year Budget

1. Budget Setup Basics: What You Need to Know

Setting up a budget in PASSPort can involve completing specific steps based on how your contracting agency has configured your budget. There are three possible budget setup paths:

• Vendor Creates the Budget: Commonly used for most Human/Client Service (also known as Health and Human Service/HHS) contracts. When it's time to complete the budget, vendors receive a Vendor Budget Completion task in PASSPort, along with an email notification. Note: For HHS contracts, the Industry field in the Contract Header section will display “Human/Client Service.”
• Agency Creates the Budget, Vendor Finalizes It: Agencies create the initial budget and notify vendors when it's time to finalize it by submitting a Purchase Order Change Request (POCR) to break down the budget into detailed budget lines.
• Agency Creates the Budget (No Vendor Action Required): This option is usually reserved for contracts where the budget details are not managed in PASSPort such as for large construction contracts. No vendor action is required.

2. Easily Determine Your Budget Tasks

In addition to receiving prompts from your contracting agency to complete your budget, you can easily determine what your organization needs to do by following these steps:

Open your Purchase Order (PO). Go to the Budget tab. Navigate to the Detailed FY Budget section. Check if Budget Lines are displayed.

• No Budget Lines Display: You need to create your budget – see 4. How to Create a Budget.

  Example: The Detailed FY Budgets section is blank, and it reads “0 Result(s)”, the Total Budgeted Amount field is blank, and the Amount still unallocated field displays the full budget amount.

  

• One or More Budget Lines Display: You need to finalize the agency-created budget by breaking down the provided budget into individual budget lines – see 5. How to Finalize an Agency-Created Budget.

  Example: Two budget lines were already created by your contracting agency. The To be allocated field lists “0.00%” (or: 0 dollars), indicating that the contracting agency already allocated all of the funds which now need to be reallocated in accordance with the agency's fiscal guidance.

  

3. What are Purchase Orders?

Before diving into all things budget-related, especially if you're new to PASSPort, here are a few key things to know about Purchase Orders (POs):

• The PO represents the contract budget for a fiscal year. There will be a new PO for every fiscal year of your contract.
• Fiscal Years (FY) begin July 1st and end June 30th for the City of New York.
• Multiple POs may be issued, depending on your contract term.

4.1. Open the Vendor Budget Completion Task

1. Click the pencil icon to access the Vendor Budget Completion task via the Open Workflow Tasks widget on the homepage. Don't see the task? Click the hyperlink above the table to view all tasks. (Example: “See 3 results”)

2. The Purchase Order (PO) displays with an In Progress status and an alert that indicates it's time to create the budget. Review the PO details in the Overview tab, including making sure the correct Fiscal Year displays.

   

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4.2. Upload Required Documentation

Refer to your contracting agency's fiscal guidance if backup documentation is required.

If supporting documentation is required: In the Overview tab of the Purchase Order, click the Manage Documents button to upload required documents. Follow the prompts. The file size limit is 300MB.

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4.3. Review the Budget Information

1. Click the Budget tab of the PO. The budget displays.
2. Note the FY Budgeted Amount in the Fiscal Year Budget Information section. The full amount must be allocated when filling out the budget.
3. Scroll down to the Detailed FY Budgets section to begin filling out your new budget.

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4.4. Add Budget Lines

For your convenience, there are three different methods to add line items to your budget.

Choose one or more of the following methods to add budget lines:

• Add Budget Line: Add lines manually, one by one.
• Duplicate Lines from Previous FY PO: Only available if previous FY PO exists. Efficient when budgets don't change much between fiscal years. This automatically copies over all lines from the previous fiscal year budget. Once copied over, you can edit the entries.
• Download Budget Template and Upload Budget: Ideal for bulk entries. Download the budget template, complete it offline in Excel, and then upload the finalized version to PASSPort.

C. Download Budget Template and Upload Budget

1. Click the Download Budget button.

   

   A template will download to your computer. Make sure there are no pop-up blockers set up in your web browser.

   

2. Open the Excel file and enter budget line information according to the column labels.

   Columns marked in red indicate required fields. Save the file to your computer.

   
3. Upload the spreadsheet in PASSPort:
   • Click the Upload Budget button.
   • Click the Click or Drag to add a file button to add the budget template file and follow the prompts.
   • Click the Upload button.

To add individual budget lines, refer to the instructions listed in Add Budget Line.

Tip: Keep an eye on the To be allocated field—it shows the remaining budget you still need to allocate. You can also click the gear icon to download the table's contents for your records.

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4.5. Submit the Budget

1. Take a moment to ensure that the Total Budgeted Amount is the same as the FY Budgeted Amount.
2. Click Submit to Agency button at the top of the page.
3. Look out for this validation message. It confirms successful budget submissions.

5.1 Find the Purchase Order

1. Click Financials in the top navigation menu.
2. Select Browse Contract Budgets from the drop-down menu.
3. In the Keywords text field, enter the Purchase Order ID (PO ID). If you do not know the PO ID, you may enter other search options such as the Contract ID.
4. In the Status field, remove the In Progress and Registered filters, so that only Active displays.
5. Click the Search button. Results matching your criteria will appear in a table below the search fields.
6. In the search results, click the pencil icon or the PO ID link to open the Purchase Order (PO).

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5.2 Create the Purchase Order Change Request (POCR)

Since your contracting agency has already created and approved an initial budget for you, a POCR needs to be created to finalize the budget.

1. Click the Create PO Change Request button at the top of the page.

   Note: If the Create PO Change Request button does not display, it may be due to:

   • You might not have a required user role. See Before We Begin of this guide for details.
   • The contracting agency might not have (or not yet) enabled vendor-submitted budgets.
   • A Purchase Order Change Request (POCR) may already in progress. Previously initiated POCRs can be found by clicking on Change Log on the left-side navigation. Submit any pending POCRs or send your contract agency a request to cancel.

   The Select Purchase Change Request Type page appears.

2. Click the Select the PO Change Request Type drop-down and select the option: Budget Change Only.
3. In the Change Request Reason text field, enter a reason for the change request. In this example, we're looking to modify a budget and enter “Create Budget.”
4. Click the Submit button at the top of the page.

5. When the POCR is created, in the Created PO Change Request field, hyperlinked text will display. Click the hyperlink.

   

   The Purchase Order (PO) appears.

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5.3. Upload Required Documentation

Refer to your contracting agency's fiscal guidance if backup documentation is required.

If supporting documentation is required: In the Overview tab of the Purchase Order, click the Manage Documents button to upload required documents. Follow the prompts. The file size limit is 300MB.

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5.4. Review the Budget Information

1. Click the Budget tab of the PO. The budget displays.
2. Note the FY Budgeted Amount in the Fiscal Year Budget Information section. The full amount must be allocated when filling out the budget.

3. Scroll down to the Detailed FY Budgets section. This is where you complete the budget.

   Note: The existing budget lines were created by your contracting agency. In this example, the Agency already created two pre-existing budget lines for Accounting Costs.

   

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5.5 Void Pre-Existing Budget Lines

Before adding new lines to your budget, you will typically need to void any budget lines created by your contracting agency. Voiding a budget line simply means noting in the budget line that it is no longer needed, so that the agency can ignore or delete it when approving the budget.

Do Void Budget Lines:

• When the pre-existing budget line(s) has a Unit Price greater than “1”.

Do NOT Void Budget Lines:

• If a pre-existing budget line has a Unit Price equal to "1". Edit the line item fields instead.
• For Budget Lines with an Item Category “Allowance” or “Unallocated”. Refer to the contracting agency guidance on how to proceed instead.

How to Void Budget Lines:

1. Go to the Detailed FY Budgets section and click the pencil icon.
2. Check if the Unit Price is greater than “1”, which is the case in this example (it displays 500). If so, continue the steps to void the line. However, if the Unit Price shows “1” there's no need to void the line. Instead, simply edit the line item fields as needed.
3. In the Add Budget Line window, click the Item Category field drop-down. The menu will expand
4. Click See All. The Item Category (Budgets) window appears.

5. Click the checkbox to select Other from the Item Category list.

   Tip: You can also type in the first few letters of the category “Other” to quickly locate it.

6. Click the Close button.
7. In the Budget Line Item text field, type: “Void Line”.
8. Click the radio button to select Quantity. Do not select Amount.
9. Enter “0” in the Quantity field.

10. Click the Save and Close button.

    

The budget line will update and now display as “Void Line”, indicating to the contracting agency that you want this line deleted.

Repeat steps, as needed.

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5.6 Add Budget Lines

Now it's time to complete the budget by adding new budget lines.

Add budget lines manually or by bulk upload:

• Add Budget Lines: Add lines manually, one by one.
• Download Budget Template and Upload Budget: Ideal for bulk entries when creating a new budget. Download the budget template, complete it offline in Excel, and then upload the finalized version to PASSPort.

B. Download Budget Template and Upload Budget

1. Click the Download Budget button.

   

   A template will download to your computer. Make sure there are no pop-up blockers set up in your web browser.

   

2. Open the Excel file and enter budget line information according to the column labels.

   Columns marked in red indicate required fields. Save the file to your computer.

   
3. Upload the spreadsheet in PASSPort:
   • Click the Upload Budget button.
   • Click the Click or Drag to add a file button to add the budget template file and follow the prompts.
   • Click the Upload button.

To add individual budget lines, refer to the instructions listed in Add Budget Lines.

Tip: Keep an eye on the To be allocated field—it shows the remaining budget you still need to allocate. You can also click the gear icon to download the table's contents for your records.

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5.7 Check Approvals

For POCRs, in the Detailed FY Budget section, the Check Approvals button displays.
You can use it to check if your intended budget changes qualify for auto-approval.

To expedite the approval process, new budget lines valued at less than 10% of the total fiscal year budget are typically auto approved, meaning they do not require manual approval by your contracting agency. Changes exceeding 10% require manual review and approval by the agency.

Click the Check Approvals button to view whether the changes qualify for auto-approval:

• Yes. This means your changes do qualify for auto approval. The changes do not exceed the agency's auto-approval threshold and will be auto approved in PASSPort, meaning manual approval by your contracting agency is not required. Note: If the initial POCR doesn't use the full threshold amount, the remaining balance can be applied to another budget-only POCR.
• No. This means your changes do not qualify for auto approval. The changes exceed the agency's auto-approval threshold which means that manual budget approval is required by the contracting agency.

Example:

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5.8 Submit the Budget

1. Take a moment to ensure the Total Budgeted Amount is the same as the FY Budgeted Amount.
2. Click Submit to Agency button at the top of the page to submit the POCR.
3. Look out for this validation message. It confirms successful budget submissions.

If the agency approves your budget, the POCR status will change to Registered and the underlying Active PO will be updated with your changes.

Note: Take note of your Active Purchase Order's PO ID. Both Purchase Orders and Purchase Order Change Requests use PO IDs as their unique identifiers. However, invoices can only be made against Active status Purchase Orders.

6. Next Steps

• While the agency is reviewing your budget, you will not be able to make any additional changes.
• The agency might return the budget back to you for additional edits at which point you can resubmit with revisions. You will receive an email notification if the budget was returned for revision.
• Once the budget is approved by the contracting agency, the contract is registered and the PO is Active, and work has begun, you can start to submit invoices!

7. Best Practices

• Before Doing Any Work in PASSPort: Carefully review your contracting agency's fiscal guidance on your Agency's preferences regarding setting up your budget. Make sure your colleagues working on budgets have access to your organization's PASSPort account and are assigned the necessary user role(s) to do the work.
• Gather Required Documentation: Review your Agency's fiscal guidance for documentation requirements. Upload required documents before proceeding to budget entry as this step is easily missed.
• Offline PO ID Tracking: Record your PASSPort Purchase Order IDs outside of PASSPort – this will help you quickly locate your POs when making future budget modifications. Click the gear icon (located at the bottom-right corner of the Budget tab > Detailed FY Budgets section) to easily download budget details from PASSPort.