Budgeting
You know why most things in KOSMA are defined in Settings before you can use them, how to tell a Settings dialog from an apply panel, and what the eye, the in-use count and a blocked delete are telling you.
Companies, Effects, Taxes, Units, Tags, Currencies, Variables, Fringes & Supplements and Extra Costs each have a **Settings** dialog. Nearly all of them work the same way, so learning it once saves learning it nine times.
You define an entry once — a company, a fringe, a tax rate — then apply it to as many lines as you like. Defining costs nothing; only applying puts money in the budget.
The reason is consistency. A social-security rate defined once and applied to sixty accounts is one number to correct when it changes.
That single definition reaches 22 accounts. Change the percentage here and all 22 move — which is the point, and the reason to check the **In Use** count before you edit one.
Every details panel has a settings icon that jumps to the matching dialog, so you can define something the moment you find it missing.
The larger dialogs — fringes, supplements, extra costs, variables — sort entries into **groups**, both for finding things and for applying several at once.
Most rows have a visibility toggle. Hiding an entry takes it out of the pickers without deleting it and without touching anywhere it is already applied.
Use it for entries that were right last year, or belong to a different kind of production. Deleting them would be destructive; hiding keeps the budget intact and the picker short.
Several dialogs count how many times an entry is used. It answers the question you actually have before changing a rate — how much of the budget does this touch — and it is the fastest way to spot entries that were defined and never used.
An entry in use does not simply disappear. Usually you are **warned and allowed to overrule**: the dialog lists what uses the entry and offers **Delete anyway**. A few things are refused outright, with a single **Ok** and nothing to confirm.
The less obvious case is an entry named **in a formula**. Deleting a company whose name appears in a formula leaves that formula pointing at nothing, so you are warned and shown the formulas even when the company is not assigned to any line directly.
**DFFF Parameters**, **Alternate Budget Grids** and **Payment Cycle Presets** are reached the same way but are not define-and-apply lists. They configure one thing rather than offering a list to draw from, so the eye, the In Use count and the delete rules do not apply to them.
Fringes, supplements, extra costs and taxes each ask for a **Collect In Budget Account** when you define an entry — a separate idea with consequences of its own.
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