Overspends are the bane of a finance manager’s life and can adversely affect cash flow projections and financial planning. By establishing budgets for departments, cost centres or even projects, purchase order creators will never be allowed to spend over the monies allocated. Budgets can be seen by users at the time of PO creation in terms of available funds, and a PO cannot be raised if there aren’t sufficient funds available – especially important when several users have access to the same budget. The Finance department would normally have control of budgets set, and would have the latitude to increase budgets, or not, on a case by case basis. Budgets can also be tied to fiscal periods for expiry and put on a Budget Watch list for those being regularly accessed. It’s all about controlling expenditure.