General Information
Recharge center budgets are one type of budget that charge for providing goods and services to others; they are distinguished from other reimbursable budget types because they charge primarily internal customers. For a more comprehensive list of the budget types and their characteristics, please refer to the table of reimbursable budget types.
If you are interested in establishing a new budget, please use the Budget Types Flowchart to determine the appropriate budget to set up.
Within recharge centers, there can be three budgets set up for different purposes as described below.
Operating Budget
All service and recharge centers are required to have one operating budget.
This budget is used to record operating costs and income including:
- Salaries and benefits of personnel working for the center
- Supplies
- Purchased services such as maintenance contracts, etc.
- Equipment depreciation or use allowance
- Income from sales of goods or services
The fund balance in this budget less working capital is included when preparing an annual rate proposal.
Reserve Budget
Each service and recharge center may have one or more reserve budgets. The most common type of reserve budget is an equipment reserve budget.
A reserve budget is used to hold balances and record transactions that don't directly affect the rate charged to recharge center customers including:
- Purchases of equipment costing over $5,000 per individual item.
- Surcharges to non-UW, non-federal customers.
If service or recharge centers want to include equipment depreciation or equipment use allowance in the recharge rates, they must have an equipment reserve budget.
Inventory Budget
An inventory budget is required only for centers that have inventories over $25,000 at fiscal year-end (June 30). These are items that are going to be resold, not supplies used in the recharge center operations.
The center takes a physical inventory at the end of each fiscal year and reports the amount to Financial Accounting. A journal voucher is prepared by Financial Accounting to transfer the change in value of inventory from the operating account to the inventory account.