How do budgets and seasons work?
Last verified October 18, 2026
Each FTC season gets its own budget with its own categories, and every order, expense and income entry is filed against one season. Budget managers set an allocation per category on Finance > Budget, start the next season with leftover money rolled forward, and can close a finished season so nothing in it changes.
You need: View finances to see the budget; Manage budgets to change it
Seasons
A season in Robolyst is an FTC season. By default your team's season rolls over on August 1, a month before FIRST's own September boundary, so preseason work lands in the new season. Someone with Manage settings can move the date under Team Settings with Season starts on the 1st of, any month from April to September.
The first time anyone opens a finance page in a new season, Robolyst creates that season's budget with seven starter categories: Build & Parts, Tools & Consumables, Travel & Competition, Outreach, Marketing & Branding, Registration & Fees, and Other. Rename, recolour or archive them as you like.
Use the season picker at the top of Budget, Orders, Expenses and Reports to look at an earlier season.
Starting a new season on purpose
To carry money and categories across:
- Go to Finance > Budget.
- Click New season and pick the season.
- Tick Roll leftover forward into the new season to carry what was left at the end of last season (its rolled-over amount plus income, minus spending) into a Rolled over figure.
- Tick Copy the previous season's categories to keep last season's categories and allocations.
- Click Create season.
Categories and allocations
Click Add category to create one. Give it a name, an Allocation and a colour. Set Sits under to make it a sub-category; a sub-category's spending counts towards its parent's total as well as its own. Drag rows to reorder them.
Archiving a category removes it from the budget but keeps past spending filed under it. Spending with no category shows up as Uncategorized.
If you don't track income, click Set a total to give the season a hand-set budget. Clear it to go back to adding up the allocations.
What counts as spent
| Counts as spent | Doesn't count yet |
|---|---|
| Order items marked ordered or received | Requests waiting for approval |
| Approved expenses | Approved orders nobody has placed (shown as committed) |
| On a fiscally sponsored team, the real card charges | Expenses still waiting for a manager's sign-off |
When a category passes its allocation, the budget shows Over budget. Finance settings can warn or block approvals that would push a category over, and can alert budget managers at a percentage of the allocation.
Closing a season
Once a season is wrapped up, a budget manager can lock it:
- Go to Finance rules under Settings (
/team-management/finance/settings). - Find the season under Closed seasons.
- Click Close season.
A closed season accepts no new orders, expenses or income, and nothing already in it can be edited. Reports still read normally. Click Reopen to undo it.