The term used in governmental accounting to identify amounts that the governmental unit is authorized to spend for debt repayment, operating activities, and asset acquisition. The appropriations account is a budgetary account that acts as a control account for all budgeted expenditures. More usually, appropriations refer to any funds dedicated to a particular purpose. As like at the beginning of the period, balance of expenditures is entered as the budget amount to the appropriations control account. It has a subsidiary account for each type of expenditure, such as supplies or salaries. The budgeted amount of each type of appropriation is entered as a credit to the corresponding subsidiary account; the budgeted amount of salaries is entered in the salary expenditures subsidiary account. In the mean while the accounting period, the actual amount of expenditures for salaries is entered as a debit to the appropriate subsidiary account. At any point in time the actual amount spent on salaries (the debit balance) can be compared to the budgeted amount (the credit balance).