Transfer Budget Carry Over

[potbellypigs]

Really enjoying my current save. Took over recently relegated Palace in the Championship and sold over £200m of players while bringing in only £34m. Projected finances looking all good and transfer budget at the end of the season stood at a healthy £90m (they even increased it in January!). Promoted back to the PL and they've given me a budget of £37m! Why? I could have just spent all the budget in January and we would be completely screwed I assume. I wonder if the budget would have still been £37m if I'd have spent it in January. 

Why am I typing this, I don't know. There's not really a question in here, maybe just more of a vent. I have read comments from people about this sort of thing before but it's never happened to me in a save. 

[FrazT]

All the finance budgets are for one season only and at the end of the season, the board will assess the overall club finances and decide on the budgets for the next season. so unused budgets are not automatically carried forward.  If you had spent all the budget in January, there is a strong chance that your new budget would have been considerably lower, so spending it without need, is also not recommended.

[Cloud9]

11 hours ago, potbellypigs said:

Really enjoying my current save. Took over recently relegated Palace in the Championship and sold over £200m of players while bringing in only £34m. Projected finances looking all good and transfer budget at the end of the season stood at a healthy £90m (they even increased it in January!). Promoted back to the PL and they've given me a budget of £37m! Why? I could have just spent all the budget in January and we would be completely screwed I assume. I wonder if the budget would have still been £37m if I'd have spent it in January. 

Why am I typing this, I don't know. There's not really a question in here, maybe just more of a vent. I have read comments from people about this sort of thing before but it's never happened to me in a save. 

You can check your club debt. Future fees and stuff can mess up your finances as well.

As @FrazT mentions...the board evaluates every year based on your situation and determines from there. This year has extra implications for financial mismanagement at a club...which is likely why you have not experienced it before. 

37m pounds is still plenty to stay up with...especially if you have setup/utilized your scouting network while in the Championship. If you have not planned ahead and already established your transfer targets at the end of the season then things can be difficult. 

Edited July 11 by Cloud9

[rich10]

On the face of it, it sounds wrong that you've gone from the Championship into the Prem with a reduced budget, given all of the additional projected income you'll guarantee the club.

But this is without knowing more detail about your financial commitments and debts. Which is why it would be nice to have the reasons behind it explained in the game.

I've not experienced this myself on FM (only on PES master league when they zeroed my huge budget for a new season. Learnt my lesson and deleted that save 😀)

[potbellypigs]

10 hours ago, FrazT said:

All the finance budgets are for one season only and at the end of the season, the board will assess the overall club finances and decide on the budgets for the next season. so unused budgets are not automatically carried forward.  If you had spent all the budget in January, there is a strong chance that your new budget would have been considerably lower, so spending it without need, is also not recommended.

They are nice sound bites, but actually that doesn't make sense. If the transfer budget was £90m and I didn't get promoted then I could sort of get it, but the club got promoted to the riches of the PL. Have £90m to spend but if you don't spend it then it goes down to £37m even if you still get promoted. There is no way that ever makes sense.

[XaW]

I think there might be some confusion about what a transfer budget is. The money there is not additional money to the balance. The balance is the actually cash (or more likely bank balance) the club has. The transfer budget can be higher or lower than the balance, but the transfer budget is just that, a budget, not actual money set aside from the rest the club has.

To be more specific, if a club has £10m in balance, and then a transfer budget of £5m. They then buy a player for £3m (all costs included like agent fees etc just for simplicity), then the balance will be £7m and the transfer budget will be £2m. The budget is smaler, and so is the actual money the club has.

If the team also has "selling transfer revenue available" of 50% and a balance of £10m and a transfer budget of £5m, and then sell a player for £10m, the balance will go to £20m (original £10m + £10m in sale), and the transfer budget will be £10m (original £5m + 50% of the £10m sale).

So if you don't spend the budget in a season, that money doesn't "go back into the balance", since the money was never taken from it. The board however will recalculate what they think you can spend the next season no matter if you spent all or not the last season. It all depends on how much money the club has (balance) and expected income and expenditure, as well as how ambitious (read; willing to risk) the board is.

In this specific case, I would guess the board is very conservative with the money, as they probably expect the players to request higher wages (or have wage increase clauses that will already kick in soon if they haven't already). And if they then expect the club to be relegated again, and the player don't have relegation wage clauses, then they will be back to the current income with higher expenditure if the relegation happens. Perhaps the club need a new stadium because the old one does not fill league requirements and the board has started to plan for this? Perhaps there are other future expenses coming that OP has not said anything about? This is what I would guess at anyway with the little information given. Perhaps a very ambitious board would give loads of money while also expecting to not be relegated and thus keeping the increased income longer, but once again, it's a guess.

[FrazT]

It is not a sound bite but the actualities of running a business.  Last season's accounts are over and the board, like any other, will set new budgets based on the club's total finances and projections available to them at the start of the new season.  You have not advised of other finance commitments like debt, loan repayment, other major expenses or wages, so it is not possible to give anything other than general input.

If, however, you just want to vent then carry on 

[potbellypigs]

7 hours ago, XaW said:

I think there might be some confusion about what a transfer budget is. The money there is not additional money to the balance. The balance is the actually cash (or more likely bank balance) the club has. The transfer budget can be higher or lower than the balance, but the transfer budget is just that, a budget, not actual money set aside from the rest the club has.

To be more specific, if a club has £10m in balance, and then a transfer budget of £5m. They then buy a player for £3m (all costs included like agent fees etc just for simplicity), then the balance will be £7m and the transfer budget will be £2m. The budget is smaler, and so is the actual money the club has.

If the team also has "selling transfer revenue available" of 50% and a balance of £10m and a transfer budget of £5m, and then sell a player for £10m, the balance will go to £20m (original £10m + £10m in sale), and the transfer budget will be £10m (original £5m + 50% of the £10m sale).

So if you don't spend the budget in a season, that money doesn't "go back into the balance", since the money was never taken from it. The board however will recalculate what they think you can spend the next season no matter if you spent all or not the last season. It all depends on how much money the club has (balance) and expected income and expenditure, as well as how ambitious (read; willing to risk) the board is.

In this specific case, I would guess the board is very conservative with the money, as they probably expect the players to request higher wages (or have wage increase clauses that will already kick in soon if they haven't already). And if they then expect the club to be relegated again, and the player don't have relegation wage clauses, then they will be back to the current income with higher expenditure if the relegation happens. Perhaps the club need a new stadium because the old one does not fill league requirements and the board has started to plan for this? Perhaps there are other future expenses coming that OP has not said anything about? This is what I would guess at anyway with the little information given. Perhaps a very ambitious board would give loads of money while also expecting to not be relegated and thus keeping the increased income longer, but once again, it's a guess.

Fair enough, that's a pretty good explanation.