Approved is not the same as effective

A budget you can see is not always a budget you can spend. This page
explains the difference, because it is the thing people meet first and
it looks like a bug.

The mistake

Your budget says APPROVED. You raise a request against it. LEAT refuses
and says no budget version is in force.

Approved means somebody agreed the numbers. Effective means the version
is the one money is measured against, starting on a date somebody chose.
They are two separate acts and there is a gap between them on purpose.

Why there is a gap

Because a budget approved in October must not quietly grant authority
for September.

If approval and activation were the same act, every backdated approval
would rewrite what was allowed in the past, over requests that were
correctly refused at the time. The date the version becomes effective is
a decision, and somebody makes it.

What to do

Ask whoever holds budget approval to activate the version and set the
date it takes effect from. Until then the previous effective version is
the one your request is measured against.

The four states, in order

1. Working. Being written. Any number of these can exist at once and none of them is spendable. A draft total is not available funds.
2. Proposed. Frozen for review. The lines can no longer be edited.
3. Approved. Agreed. Still not spendable.
4. Effective. This is the one. Exactly one version per award, fund, programme and year is effective at a time.

A version that is replaced becomes superseded and stays readable for
ever, so a request held under it can still explain itself years later.