Group Budgets empower managers with the ability to decide how to allocate departmental or project-related funds based on needs and priorities.

Enable the Group Budget feature  

To enable the Group Budgets feature, log into the platform as an Admin, navigate to the Company Settings page, scroll down to the Group Budget section, and toggle right the Enable Group Budget button. 

Generate a Group Budget

Please follow these steps to generate/create a Group Budget:

1. Log into the Mesh platform with your Admin or Pro profile. 

2. Navigate to Cards & Budgets, click on Group Budgets, click on the Add Group Budget + button, and enter the following information (an example follows):

• Name
• Owner
• Description
• Amount
• Reload period
• Currency 
• End date 

3. Click on the Create Group Budget button.

4 If all goes well, a new budget will be created.

4.1 The budget will appear on both the Admins/Pros and the budget owner's Group Budget page. The Admin/Pro will see all the budgets created on the platform and budget owners will see just the budgets created and assigned to them. 

4.2 When a budget is clicked the user can see its details. 

5. Admins/Pros and the budget owner can add cards for that budget and assign them to relevant employees. Relevant financial activities (e.g., charges and reimbursements) will appear on the card's section under the mentioned budget as soon as those are authorized. 

Notes:

a. For a transaction made with a card belonging to the budget to be successfully processed, the transaction needs to comply with both the budget and the card's limitations. 

b. An Admin/Pro can Edit or Suspend the budget as well as Add cards to be used under the mentioned budget. The budget owner can also Suspend the budget and generate cards per needs/priorities. 

c. A budget owner can view the cards associated with the budget, along with their respective transactions and reimbursements. A user with an Admin or Pro profile can view all the budgets, transactions, and cards associated with them. 

The following functionalities (i.e., the options presented under bullets d and e) ONLY work with the 'old' Mesh approval flow. These options will NOT work when a company uses the new workflow in conjunction with the group budget. 

d. An Admin/Pro has the ability to add a card to an existing budget during the approval process. However, this option is not available when using EDIT (i.e., a card that has already been approved). To add a card to a budget during approval, move the Add to Group Budget toggle switch to the right and select a budget.

e. If a card requester marks a budget owner as an approving manager, that person can add the card to the budget and generate the card without the involvement of an Admin. Upon reviewing the request, the budget owner/approving manager needs to click on the Add to Group Budget button then select a budget and click on the Create button.    

Notes:

• As of May 2nd, 2024, the group budget operates in conjunction with the Mesh enhanced/new workflow. The group budget uses the 'old' approval flow and as a result, it is not possible to add a card created under the new workflow, to a group budget. 
• Budget owners have full control over their budgets. They can create new cards, edit existing cards, and suspend/reactivate cards. Technically budget owners can 'move' funds from one card to the other by simply editing the cards under their budget.
• It is not possible to move a card from one budget to the other.