Budget
Appropriations, what has been committed against them, and what remains.
Public budgeting is control, not planning. An appropriation is legal authority to spend, and spending beyond it is a violation before it is a variance.
Available balance is appropriation less expenditures less encumbrances. The encumbrance is what makes this different from private budgeting: money committed by a purchase order is gone even though it has not been paid.
Where everything sits
How to work this page
Available subtracts encumbrances. Remaining that ignores them will let you overcommit.
A purchase order reduces available immediately. That is the whole mechanism.
It often differs from the accounting basis. Both are maintained and the reconciliation between them is required in the annual report.
A transfer between line items requires whatever authority your charter specifies, and it is recorded with that authority.
On a phone
Every figure from the desktop appears here, stacked rather than reduced. Tables scroll inside themselves so the page never moves sideways, and figures keep their separators and their alignment at every width.
Questions people actually ask
Depends on your rules. Encumbrances may lapse, carry forward, or need re-appropriation, and the treatment is set per fund.
A transaction that would exceed available authority is refused with the shortfall named. That refusal is the control working.