Once you've reviewed the AI-generated recommendations, update the budget so it reflects your association's financial plans. Cephai provides an excellent starting point, but you may have information, such as upcoming contracts, vendor negotiations, or board decisions, that historical data alone can't capture.
Follow these steps to edit a budget:
In the Cephai Task Center, select the appropriate budget.
OR
In CINC with universal navigation, go to Cephai and select the appropriate budget.
The Budget Summary displays. Review the AI summary, which shows Cephai's current summary of where the budget stands: Current Status, Key Issues, and Additional Notes. It stays up to date, automatically regenerating so you're never looking at stale data. It regenerates when:
Budget values change
The default scenario is switched or deleted
Flagged GL accounts are modified
Budget values update from CINC
A scenario fails
Note: To delete the budget, click Other Actions and select Delete. Draft budgets can only be deleted from the system where they were created. Deleting a Cephai-created draft in Cephai also removes it from CINC, but a draft created in CINC must be deleted there directly. Once a budget is posted, it can't be deleted from either system.
Click Proceed to budget.
The Budget Overview displays. This is your main workspace, giving you a high-level snapshot of revenue, expenses, balances, and year-over-year changes so you can quickly identify areas that need closer attention. Review each line item, grouped by category with subtotals shown, comparing Cephai's AI-suggested amount against your budget, prior-year figures, and percent change.
Note: Use the Scenario drop-down near the top of the page to create a new scenario, or, if you've built multiple, switch between them to compare each one.
Adjust values in the Your Budget column. An Orange Sun icon indicates that seasonality has been applied to that item. As you adjust values, compare them against the AI Suggestion and historical figures to make sure your changes stay reasonable and support your association's financial goals.
Click a specific account to view or modify it.
You can edit the values in the Monthly Breakdown, if needed. Use this when you need to reflect contract payment schedules, fine-tune cash flow, or adjust seasonal spending patterns throughout the year.
At the bottom of the page, do one of the following:
Click Mark as Reviewed to confirm you examined this section.
Click Flag for Review to flag the section for further review.
Click Close to return to the main budget page.
You can also flag accounts and mark them as reviewed from the main budget page.
Select the checkbox for the appropriate accounts and do one of the following:
Select Mark as Reviewed from the Flag drop-down.
Select Flag from the Flag drop-down.
Click Update.
Note: All items must be marked Reviewed before you can post a budget.
You can add a new account to the budget, as needed.
Click Add GL.
The Add Row window displays. In the Select GL field, search for and select the appropriate item.
Enter the Amount in the field.
Click Add Row.
You can change the growth rate to immediately see how it affects total assessment income and what each homeowner pays per year. You can also adjust the unit count if needed, so the per-unit figures are accurate.
Click Assessment Details Per Unit on the right to expand the section.
Check and adjust the unit count, if necessary. This section shows unit information from CINC. If CINC hasn’t provided a unit count, it displays a blank or zero instead. You can also manually enter the unit count to display the per-unit result.
Note: The proposed year's assessment displays as a per-unit, per-month dollar amount, derived from the proposed yearly per-unit fee divided by the association's actual billing frequency.
Adjust the Global Variance %. The table automatically updates the Yearly Amount and Annual Fee per unit, which you can compare to the current proposed amount and previous year’s actuals.
If there isn’t a prior-year budget amount on file, you can manually enter the Yearly Amount and then it calculates the year-over-year increase and per unit change from that entered number.
Once changes are complete, click Apply to carry those figures into your budget.
Notes:
The table updates in real time, with no need to refresh, so you can test different rates on the fly, for example, changing from 3% to 5% to instantly compare the impact.
Cephai does not push assessment data into CINC. If you plan to create next year's assessments for homeowner billing, you'll need to update those assessments directly in CINC.
You can add General Notes to a budget to document decisions, assumptions, or reminders, such as board decisions or planned projects, keeping everyone with access to the budget on the same page.
Click General Notes on the right to expand the section.
Note: You can also review existing notes here.
Click Add New Note to create a comment or reminder.
Enter your budget note and click Add Note.
It's a best practice to load all required documents during initial Budget task creation. If new information becomes available after, such as an updated vendor contract, a revised reserve study, a new project estimate, or an insurance renewal, click the upload area in the bottom right to browse for files, or drag and drop them there. Cephai re-analyzes the budget, updating its recommendations and AI insights to reflect the most current information.
Click the Uploaded Documents tab. Cephai extracts dollar amounts from the documents and suggests a matching GL account for each one. Confirm or correct each suggested GL account match and dollar amounts before the figures are applied and then click Recalculate.
Notes:
If Cephai can't match an income or expense line item, you can manually specify whether it's income or an expense, then select the correct GL account for it.
If an uploaded document gives no amount, a zero, or several different amounts for a budget line, the amount field is left empty and highlighted in red for you to review. Select the information icon next to the line for more information about why it could not be ingested.
If necessary, you can also click Add income/expense and enter dollar amounts and GL accounts manually.
If you need to quickly undo a matched item that has already been applied to the budget, you can click the Revert button to undo.
Once confirmed, Cephai applies the figures directly to the matching budget line items.
Click Regenerate Insights to re-run the comparison between AI suggestions and your current budget values and notes, and to update flagged GL accounts.
Click Rebalance to automatically balance the budget after manually editing income or expense line items. This adjusts the Assessments account to absorb the difference, subtracting the surplus when income exceeds expenses, or adding the shortfall when expenses exceed income, so the budget nets back to zero.
If new financial activity has been recorded since you started the budget, click Refresh Actuals to pull in the latest data. Your previous budget edits remain in place.