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Checklist for Editors: Digital Budget Book - Create a New Budget Book from a Legacy Budget Book

This checklist is intended to assist Editors with creating a new Fiscal Year's Budget Book if the prior year's budget book was created on the Legacy Digital Budget Book platform. Use this checklist when you start a new budget book and want to carry forward your legacy budget book content.

Note: You can click on any image below to zoom in.

Before You Begin...

Familiarize Yourself with the new Digital Budget Book Platform

5 Steps to Creating a New Budget Book with a Legacy Budget Book

Step 1: Create a New Budget Book and Carry Forward Your Narrative Pages

What Gets Carried Forward?

It's important to know which content is carried forward from your legacy budget book and which must be recreated in the new book before beginning the creation process.

  • Static narrative pages (text, charts, images) do get carried forward.
  • General content pages like Capital Improvements, Demographics, Debt, and the Glossary are auto-generated—no need to import manually.

NOTE: Financial pages, attachments, and dynamic content will not be carried forward. These must be recreated in your new document.

Create Your New Book

From the Digital Budget Books module, select the +Create New Budget Book button.  

You will follow four easy steps: 

  1. Select Fiscal Years and Template Type (GFOA, ASBO, or Basic)
  2. Choose a Prior Budget Book - This step is crucial for bringing forward your Legacy budget book! 
  3. Connect Your Operating Budget
  4. Add Your Capital Budget Projects (optional)

Resources: 

Step 2: Review the Carried Forward Pages

Once your document is created, a summary pop-up will show how many charts and images were carried forward. You can always view this again by selecting the DBB Import Report button at the top of your document.

Carried-forward pages will appear in your Table of Contents with a status of Review Required. Use the page status filter to find and finalize these pages.

Pro-Tips:

  • Hover over a page name and select the action menu to rename, reorder, or delete unmatched pages.
  • Rename pages to remove the “(unmatched)” label after reviewing and editing content.
  • Turn off the filter before reordering to see all pages.

Step 3: Create Financial Pages

Create Dynamic Financial Pages to tell the story of how you’ve allocated your budget. Financial Pages are populated full of dynamic graphics that update automatically to represent your latest data. Aggregate multiple dimensions into a single page or create pages for each dimension. Dimensions could be anything in your mapped Chart of Accounts, such as Fund, Department, Object, and more. 

Customize your pages by adding and editing sections, pages, and content blocks.

Step 4: Review your Budget Book Settings

Financial Page Settings

Navigate to the document Settings to make bulk decisions on your financial pages. 

If a dynamic financial page has been created, then you will see a Settings option for that financial page type. For example: Fund, Department, or Location pages.

In the Settings for each Financial Page Type, you can make universal decisions to hide content blocks and configure your financial schedule tables.

A Few More Helpful Settings

Step 5: Finish Building out Your Budget Book

Finish customizing your budget book settings, financial pages, and narrative pages. You may want to add Collaborators to assist you with building and formatting narrative pages. If you selected a template (GFOA or ASBO) when you created your book, don't forget to refer to the award checklist to ensure you're meeting all of the award criteria.

Resources:

Need Additional Resources?

Feel free to search our Support Center or review resources on this specific module: Digital Budget Book



Have more questions or need assistance? Submit a Request

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