GSSF Application

Each year, the Budget Excel is updated to reflect proper updates from the previous SSFC and to reflect the correct fiscal year and dates.

You’ll want to make sure you start with Main Page 1 and that the Fiscal Years reflect the proper dates to make sure you’re using the most recent excel. If you have to edit this yourself, you don’t have the most up to date excel.

You can find the most up to date excel in the Application Materials portion of this page.

When you enter your organization’s name in the Group Name field, it will auto-populate throughout the excel so that whatever page the SSFC or ASM Staff are on, we know what organization we’re looking at.

This also creates less tedious work for you so you don’t have to enter it a bunch of different times throughout the excel!

Please make sure your organization’s name is what is reflected in WIN (Wisconsin Involvement Network) when you register with the Center for Leadership and Involvement.

On Main Page 1, there are partial instructions to help you through the excel.

The biggest instructions would be definitions so you can see what exactly is expected while you’re working your way through the excel. It also tells you what cells you should be editing and which ones you should not.

The most comprehensive and detailed instructions can be found here, however.

No! The great thing about this excel is that we have it set up to auto-populate as you fill out your request. So when you’re requesting funds from the SSFC, that revenue is already included on this revenue summary.

There are some things that are not allowed when you have GSSF funding. For one, it’s highly  unlikely that you would also get an event/travel grant through ASM if you have GSSF funding. This is because you already having funding to cover this from ASM.

Also, when you’re a GSSF funded organization, you cannot charge students a membership fee to be a part of your organization. This is because you’re now funded by the Student Segregated Fee which all students pay. This means all students should have access to your organization.

Lastly, when it comes to fundraising, you are not allowed to fundraise with GSSF dollars.

Usually, the All Revenue Summary allows us to see what you’ve done in the past with those lines if the year is relevant and you had funding in those specific lines.

Great news! Your work got a whole lot simpler on this page.

Since the SSFC line will auto-populate and that is the only revenue you receive, you simply don’t fill out anything else on this tab!

The following lines will need direct editing from you if you plan to ask (or have asked in the previous fiscal years indicated in the excel) for any funding:

• Equipment (different from rental)
• Supplies/Furniture
• Printing/Photocopying
• Advertising
• Computer Soft/Hardware
• Equipment Rental
• Membership Fees
• Postage
• Rent (space/office)

These are all rows that are indicated in blue on the excel.

If you don’t input any funding, the assumption is that you’re not asking for any funding for these line items.

Other areas of the budget summary will auto-populate to include salaries and programming totals.

If you have questions about what any of these line items are, please ask the Assistant Director of Financial Services.

Approved:

Approved budgets can be found on the ASM Website: https://asm.wisc.edu/general-student-services-fund/ at the very bottom of the page. You can see what the SSFC approved your budgets for. You can also contact the ASM Funding Advisor who can send you your approved budgets for any fiscal year.

Actual:

Actual spending is reflected in your reconciled budgets sent out by the SSFC Financial Specialist each month for the previous month. At the end of the year, a final reconciliation will be sent that you can use to base your actual spending on.

New organizations submitting a first time request or organizations who have not had funding for two fiscal years will not have anything to report in these columns. 

The easiest way to calculate fringe is to do this with the Assistant Director of Financial Services during your Budget Review Meeting.

This will ensure your calculations are correct and you’ve allowed for enough fringe for your staff.

To add more staff positions, simply right click on the row number and select Insert.

For example, for Position 5 in Row 15, you’d right click on the number 15 and then select Insert.

This will insert a row above the row you just right clicked on.

You can do this as many times as necessary.

To copy the formatting down to the row, you will want to click on the cell with the formatting you want. When it’s highlighted green, take your mouse and put it in the bottom right corner of the cell where a little green square should be. Your mouse should change to an all-black cross. You can click and drag that down the cell below and it will copy the formula used into that cell.

For example: You can see above that Position 4 now has a row below it and one cell is selected and there is a little green dot in the bottom right corner. If you click and drag that to the cell below, it will copy that formula to the new row below. You can do this for any cell in that new row with the formula above it and the formula will copy!

This allows us to more clearly see that you’re asking for summer positions.

We have also had organizations who weren’t aware that summer positions could be asked for at all. this allows them to be more clearly visible as an option if the SSFC deems them necessary for the organization to operate.

The top section is for the past salaries from the most recent fiscal year where you can indicate the salaries you were approved for and what your actual spending was (refer to approved budgets and reconciled budgets for these numbers).

The middle section is for the current fiscal year you’d be in the middle of at the time of the budget request. There wouldn’t be any actuals because you’re in the middle of spending those approved salaries.

The bottom section is for what you’re requesting from the SSFC for this budget application. This is where you’ll reflect any new requests or changes to your past salary proposals. If everything stays the same, you’ll simply copy it down into that section so we’re aware that is what you’re requesting.

New organizations won’t have past or current salaries to report so they will scroll down to the bottom and simply fill out the request section.

Because this is an option so rarely used by GSSF, we removed it from the excel and it will be manually entered by any organizations that use this.

To do this, simply choose whatever line you want that FTE salary to be reflected in and delete the formulas in all of the cells for that row. All you’ll need to fill in for that salary is the full salary request under the approved/actual/request column.

As a reminder, the FTE salaries are set in consultation with University Human Resources and are considered non-allocable and thus not editable by the SSFC.

Some organizations have a lot of programs altogether and this excel sheet specifically can get lengthy and tedious!

As each program block is filled out, the name of the program will auto-fill into this table of contents. When an organization wants to jump to a specific program, they simply click on that program and it will jump them down to that section.

This will hopefully reduce some tedious scrolling and help with overall organization of your programming.

It’s understandable that you wouldn’t know every detail of a program an entire year out.

What we’re looking for here is that it will be a couple hours long versus an entire week or weekend etc. Think more big picture with this information.

We also understand that what you put in your budget excel isn’t necessarily set in stone but acts as a guide for what your plan for that program is.

The same goes for the venue or it being on/off campus. Usually, an organization knows that it will be on or off campus but may not know the exact room number or location of an event. That’s understandable. Again, we’re thinking big picture (for example, you might put Unions for the venue if you plan for it to be in the Union).

Try and give as much information as possible so we know that you’re thoughtfully planning these programs and events.

Putting things like “varies” isn’t helpful. Instead put “various classrooms or Union spaces” so we’re aware.

TBD is a common input that we see. Instead of “TBD” you could put “currently set for ((location)) but subject to change” or “historically at ((location)) but subject to change” just so we know you have some plans or ideas in place. This allows for more detail and a fuller picture of the event.

Depending on the program, you’ll want to edit any line identified in blue if you plan to ask for any funding.

This includes (per program):

• Supplies
• Apparel
  • The maximum across all apparel purchases for a GSSF organization is $300 and it must serve a business purpose (i.e. no club t-shirts or giveaway t-shirts). Check the Apparel policy for more information.
• Photocopying
• Honoraria/Speaker Fees
• Food/Beverage
  • Food must meet specific criteria to be purchased for a program. Check the Food policy for more information.
• Space Rental
• Travel Costs for Students/Professional Staff
  • Check the Travel policy for more information.
• Travel Costs for Speakers
  • Check the Travel policy for more information.
• Maintenance & Repairs

As you input amounts for each of these, the totals will auto-populate both in each program, at the top of the page in a program summary, and on the GSSF Budget Summary 3 page.

Currently the excel is set up for 15 programming blocks as that covers the most programs requested in recent fiscal years.

That being said, you’re not limited to 15. If you have more, you can contact the ASM Funding Advisor and they can help you add more so you don’t mess up any formulas and it will correctly auto-populate into your summaries.