Introduction

Sigma takes the guesswork out of energy budgeting by helping you create detailed month-by-month budgets. Granular budget information can be “rolled up” and summarised at any level of the organisation, modified  and then used for reporting. You can also adjust the budget globally by a specific amount or make global percentage adjustments.

The Budgeting activity gives the ability to set and manage Budgets in bulk (based on a number of possible parameters) and then report expenditure against them.  Exception reporting will highlight any levels of overspend.  There are two Activities used - Budget Creation and Budget Management.

Budgets can be set using Accounts, Meters or Monitoring Points:

Accounts - Use Accounts to create a Budget based on the monitory value from the Bills

Monitoring Points - Adds together Meters or Accounts.  For example you could have a Budget for Gas, Electricity and Water per Site.  Create a Monitoring Point containing the Meters or Accounts

Meters -  Use Meters (with Periodic or Non Periodic Channels) to create a Budget based on the Channel Data  X the cost in the Cost Definition.

                Note:  As there are no direct costs associated with a Meter, a Cost Definition needs to be set up at each Site level and connected to the Meter.  Click here for more details.

**Click here for a pre recorded training session for additional help and guidance - Budgeting which includes how to create and manage budgets

Budgeting options

Budgets can be created as follows:

• Using a total figure for the Account,  Meter or Monitoring Points
  • For example you have £5000 Budget for an Account and want to divide this equally between each period (usually 12 months).  You enter a figure of £5000 and Sigma will work out the monthly cost of £416.67
• Using a CSV file to upload the Account, Meter or Monitoring Point and individually figures for each period (usually 12 months). 
  • For example, you have 20 Monitoring Points that contain the Gas, Electricity and Water Accounts for each Site.  You want to use individual figures for each period.  The file will contain the details on the Account, Meter or Monitoring Point and the individual figures to be used for each period

Considerations

• Who decides what the Budget is?
  • Stakeholders or you?
• Do you also have a Target figure?
  • perhaps 5% of the Budget
• What is the Budget for?
  • The whole portfolio
  • Site Groups, Sites or Accounts
  • Separate Commodities
• What data are you Budgeting on?
  • Accounts
  • Meters
  • Monitoring Points
• What does your Budget look like?
  • 1 total figure for the year, divided equally between the 12 months
  • 12 individually monthly figures

Once you have decided on the above, you can then create your Budget(s)

Links

See below for links to the  pages detailing how to set up and manage your Budgets

• Budget Creation - Using a total figure per Budget
• Budget Creation - Importing individual Budget Figures
  • Example Tag CSV File for Importing Accounts into Budgets
  • Example Tag CSV File for Importing Monitoring Points into Budgets
  • Example Tag CSV File for Importing Meters into Budgets 
• Additional information when Budgeting on Metering data
• Managing your Budget