Merit budgets and how they're shared out

Set merit budgets, split them between managers, and control how much freedom managers have.

Written By Karl

Last updated About 9 hours ago

Budgets set how much a merit cycle can spend and how that money is shared between managers.

Who can do this: Administrators.

Where: a merit cycle → Settings → Budgets.

Add a budget

Select Add budget.
Choose whether the budget is a fixed amount or a percentage of payroll (Payroll), and the scope it covers.
Choose the Proposal types the budget pays for: recurring, one-time or benefit components.
Choose the Budget interpretation: Monthly salary-increase budget, or Total budget for this cycle.
Choose the Distribution to managers: By headcount, By salary mass, Equal split or Manual.
Choose the Manager control:
- Free within budget: managers decide, as long as they stay within budget.
- HR-locked: a fixed increase that managers can't change.
- Guided: managers stay within a minimum and maximum, with a Soft warning or a Hard block.

Allow over-budget submissions: if off, a manager who goes over budget sees Cannot submit — over budget.
Allow promotion proposals: lets managers propose promotions in the cycle. Promotions add an administrator sign-off step. See The approval flow.

Employees not covered by any budget are flagged No budget on the Worksheets tab.
Once the cycle is live, you can change a manager's budget with Adjust budget on the Worksheets tab.
When the cycle closes, unused budget is returned or redistributed, as set in the cycle's general settings.

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