Mapping Budget Categories
Your trip budget uses categories that fit the trip, like Airfare, Ground Transport or Construction Supplies. Your church's finance team usually reports on a shorter list of accounts, like Travel, Lodging and Ministry. Category mapping connects the two, so the finance team can read every trip's numbers in their own accounts without retyping anything.
Where to find it
Open your trip, go to the Budget tab and find the Category Mapping card. Trip leaders and church admins see it. It appears once your church has set up budget categories, and it lists the trip categories that have an estimate or an actual expense.
Map a category
- Find the trip category in the left column. Its estimated and actual totals are under its name.
- Choose one of your church's accounts from the dropdown.
- Click Map, or Update if it was already mapped.
The blue badge on the card counts the categories that are still unmapped. To remove a mapping, choose Not mapped and click Update.
Several trip categories can point to the same account. Airfare and Ground Transport can both map to Travel, for example. Each trip category maps to one account.
New trips start mapped
When a trip is created, GO copies your church's budget categories into it, each one already mapped to its account. You only need to map categories your team adds later.
If your church had no budget categories when the trip was created, the trip starts with GO's default list (Flights, Lodging, Meals, Transportation, Ministry Supplies, Insurance, Miscellaneous). Map those once your church adds its accounts.
The rolled-up finance view
Below the mapping card, Finance View (Rolled Up) adds up the trip's mapped categories by church account. For each account you see which trip categories it includes, the estimated and actual totals, the difference between them, and a status:
- On track: actual spending is within 5% of the estimate.
- Under budget: spending is more than 5% below the estimate.
- Over budget: spending is more than 5% above the estimate.
- No actuals: no expenses have been logged against it yet.
Unmapped categories are left out of this view, so map everything before you send numbers to your finance team.
Setting up your church's accounts
Church admins and finance team members manage the account list in Organization Settings, under Budget Categories. The Manage Categories button on the mapping card goes straight there. The accounts you add there also become the standard options when leaders add budget items or log expenses.
What mapping does not change
Mapping is for reporting. It does not change any traveler's cost, what anyone owes, or the expenses logged on the trip.