Updated: 1/16/04

Budget Transfer vs. Expenditure Transfer

( indicates a document in .pdf format)

What is a Budget?

A budget represents a plan of how money will be spent for a particular program. The plan is funded by an allocation approved by the Board of Education. In the case of Special Projects, the budget must agree with the grant award.

What is an Expenditure?

An expenditure is a payment issued for goods and services.

When Do You Make Budget Transfers?

A budget transfer is made when you want to change the plan of how money will be spent for a particular program. For example, if the original budget allowed $2,000 for contract services, but you find you need supplies more than the contract services, a budget transfer should be completed to move the $2,000 from the contract services category (5890) to the supply category (4300). (See sample Budget Transfer .)

Very important: State and federal grant budgets (programs 3000-3299 and 3700-3899) cannot be increased with local donations (such as money collected for field trips) or budget revisions from another program.

When Do You Make an Expenditure Transfer?

An expenditure transfer is made when the payment of a particular item was charged to the wrong expense code. For example, if a payment made to Office Depot for $827.50 was charged to the SIP program, but should have been charged to the General Ed. program, an expenditure transfer should be made to remove the expenditure from the SIP program account and charge it to the General Ed. account. (See sample Expenditure Transfer .)

Expenditure transfers should only be done to move a specific payment from one program code to another. Expenditure transfers cannot be used to move encumbrances. Please contact the Purchasing department to change an encumbrance.

The only time an expenditure transfer would change object codes is when the original code was incorrect.

(Forms are available from the Budget & Fiscal Services department. Call ext. 4206.)