Your client wants to pre-populate merit recommendations with the ideal values upon worksheet launch to...

Use a custom validation to display a warning to remind the planner to decrease an employee's merit if they increase another employee s merit. Budgets use the PercentOfCurSal mode.

Use guidelines to populate the default values and budget with mode Guideline.

Use a custom column with a formula to display the ideal values and guidelines with a default of 0 Budgets use the DirectAmount mode

Use guidelines to populate the default values and budget with mode PercentOfCustomField. where the custom field uses a lookup table.