Stage 1: Expenditure Budgeting (Structuring Your Budget)

Only submit core expenditure

Please only submit core expenditure (i.e. your aims & objectives) in your budget.
Please don't include social events, dinners, summer tours etc. as these should be submitted as an event/trip budget next year!

We may ask you to remove lines that aren't core.

Grouping expenditure into single lines

Grouping similar expenditure makes the budgeting process simpler for you and us!

Regular/weekly activity

• Where possible, similar expenses should be grouped into 1 expenditure line (e.g. one line for all travel by train to core activity, not a line per time)
• Weekly/monthly expenses for the same thing should not be split into a line per week/month. Please group these expenses into 1 line for the whole year.

One-off events

• An exception is where the expenses are for a one-off event (e.g. flagship conference, show or performance), rather than regular activity, please follow the grouping rules above but separate the event using an activity code/grouping.
• e.g. all venue hire for regular activity goes into 1 line, and all venue hire for your flagship events goes into a different line.

Guidance on how to code and present expenditure is provided below.

Keep it simple and precise

• Please keep line titles to between 1 and 5 words.
• Don't use any acronyms/initialisms/shorthand.
• Use the description box to add detail - not the title!

Rounding

If you know a cost exactly - state it exactly.
If you don't know a cost exactly, please don't guess an amount to the nearest penny, but instead provide an estimate rounded to 2sf.

Hospitality vs consumables

Hospitality = all food & drink
Consumables = any equipment which lasts at most 1 academic year (not food and drink)

Don't worry, this is a common mistake which we'll fix for you if we notice it.

Purchase of equipment & maintenance costs

Equipment purchases and maintenance should be spread over the lifetime of the equipment.

e.g. If equipment lasts for 4 years, you should budget for 1/4 of the cost per year. (if you need to spend all of your grant funding at the end of the 4 years, you can save it up)

If in doubt, ask!

We're here to help - please get in touch if you need support.
Meetings & Support

Please present regular/weekly activity as follows:
Please feel free to use Activity Groupings to provide more information, but please code core, regular expenditure under General (00).

These principles are modelled off the Annual Budgeting Principles (the grant allocation rules). If in any doubt, you can use these as a guide on how to split up expenses.

This guide won't contain everything, and it may not apply perfectly to your CSP. Please use this as a reference wherever possible, but don't worry if it doesn't quite fit. If in any doubt you can get more support via email or a meeting (Meetings & Support)

Regular/Weekly Activity

One-off core events / performances / flagship event

For one-off core events such as a performance, show, or flagship talk or conference, please follow the same advice as above, but use a unique Activity Grouping per event (and Activity Code, if you have one set up) to show this.