Budgets & Goals in Jules

Product documentation — How Jules supports commercial planning through purchase goals, target prices, and deal-level budgets with cost breakdowns and cashflow projections.

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Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Goals & Target Prices
3. Budgets
4. Budget Templates
5. Cashflow Projections
6. Approval Workflow
7. Key Business Rules
8. Glossary

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Overview

Jules provides two complementary planning tools:

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Goals & Target Prices

Goals

A goal is a purchasing or selling target — a commitment to buy or sell a certain quantity of a specific material within a given timeframe.

Goal Fields

Fulfillment Tracking

Goals track fulfilled quantity — how much has been achieved through actual operations. This allows real-time monitoring of progress vs target.

Target Prices

A target price is a simpler variant of a goal — it sets a price target without a volume commitment. It includes:

Grouping & Sorting

Goals can be:

• Grouped by destination — to see targets by delivery location
• Sorted by creation date — ascending or descending

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Budgets

A budget models the complete economics of a deal, breaking down all costs and revenues to project profitability before committing to the trade.

Budget Structure

Budget Fields

Budget Operation Qualities

Each budget links to one or more operation qualities, capturing:

Budget Elements (Cost Lines)

Each cost line in a budget specifies:

Cost Types

Element Categories

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Budget Templates

Budget templates define the structure of a budget — which cost elements are available and their default values. They are configured per organization.

Template Fields

Templates ensure consistency across budgets and reduce setup time for new deals.

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Cashflow Projections

Each budget can include cashflow projections that model when money flows in and out:

Cashflow Types

Cashflow Fields

Overdraft Period

The overdraft period indicates how many days the deal may require financing (negative cash position). This is critical for assessing working capital needs.

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Approval Workflow

Budgets are subject to an approval workflow before a deal can proceed:

The approval system uses the generic Approval entity with:

• Multiple reviewers — Several users can be assigned as approvers
• Review status — PENDING, APPROVED, or REJECTED per reviewer
• Request comment — Context provided by the budget creator
• Reject comment — Reason for rejection

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Key Business Rules

1. Goals drive purchasing behavior

Goals create visibility on what the organization needs to buy or sell. When creating operations, traders can link them to goals, and the fulfilled quantity is automatically tracked.

2. Budgets precede execution

In organizations that require approval workflows, a budget must be approved before operations are created. The budget proves the deal is profitable after accounting for all costs.

3. Templates standardize budgeting

Budget templates ensure all teams use the same cost structure, making budgets comparable across deals and time periods.

4. Cashflow projections inform treasury

By modeling payment timing, cashflow projections help the finance team anticipate working capital needs and arrange financing if needed.

5. Cost percentage flexibility

Budget elements can be calculated as a percentage of the purchase price, sale price, or total turnover — providing flexibility for different cost types (e.g., agent commission as % of sale, insurance as % of turnover).

6. Multi-quality budgets

A single budget can cover multiple operation qualities, modeling the economics of a complex deal involving several material grades.

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Glossary