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Me and my colleagues at Z&Z were having a discussion about the budget element and the comparability of cross-organisation budgets. Since budgets are mostly published using financial years or quarters, and these financial years differ per organisation, we have difficulties in comparing budgets for different organisations.
Just thought I would post it here, to hear some thoughts on the matter.
Thanks,
Bryan
Hi Bryan
The planned disbursement field could be a partial answer to this problem. Most - if not all - donors plan around fiscal years (some of which are calendar, but not all) and would have great difficulty publishing quarterly data way ahead. However, it’s a lot easier to publish quarterly data for the next 3-4 quarters. The planned disbursements element would contain this more detailed data - did you try using this instead of, or in addition to, the budget element?
It’s also worth flagging that, to my knowledge, we all use the same quarters - starting in January, April, July and October - irrespective of when our fiscal year starts/ends. So any data divided by quarter should be comparable across organisation.