Prepare a budget

A budget is your plan for the year: how much income you expect, and how much you plan to spend, on each account, month by month. Once it is approved you can compare it with what actually happens. You can also use it to keep spending under control.

Before you start

• Budgets is part of the top edition of each product: Gold for hotels, Professional for DMS, Manufacturing and POS (and the Pharmacy edition), and Enterprise where there is one. If Budgets isn't in your menu, your edition doesn't include it; an Administrator sees an upgrade option.
• You need the Financial Statements permission.
• The fiscal year must exist and have its months (periods). Check under Accounting → Fiscal Years.
• Decide whether you budget for the whole company, or for each department separately (each branch or cost centre gets its own amounts).

Steps

1. Go to Accounting → Budgets and click New budget.
2. Choose the Fiscal year, give it a Name, and choose The whole company or Each department separately.
3. Choose where to start:
   • A year's actual figures: last year's real income and spending, month by month. This is the quickest start.
   • Another budget: a copy of an earlier budget.
   • An empty budget.
4. If you started from figures, enter Adjust every amount by (%), for example 10 for 10 % more than last year. Click Create.
5. The budget opens as a grid: accounts down the side, months across. Type amounts into the cells. Changed cells turn yellow. Click Save changes.
   • For a department budget, choose the department at the top right before typing. All departments (totals) shows the sum and can't be edited.
   • spread a year… under an account divides an annual amount evenly over the months.
   • Fill from… copies another budget or a year's actuals into empty cells, or replaces existing amounts too if you tick that box.
6. To work in Excel instead, click Excel to download the grid, fill it in, and click Import to load it back. Accounts are matched by code or name, and months by their column heading. Empty cells are left alone, and a dash (-) clears a cell.
7. When it is ready, click Submit for approval (see Approve a budget and control spending).

Tips

• Enter amounts as positive numbers: income you expect to earn, spending you expect to make.
• Only income and expense accounts can be budgeted. Bank, stock and other balance-sheet accounts don't appear.
• Show all accounts lists accounts that have no amounts yet.
• You can keep several budgets for one year, for example an optimistic and a careful one. Only one of them controls spending.

Common problems

• Budgets is missing from the menu, or a page says it isn't part of your plan. Your edition doesn't include Budgets. Ask your Administrator about upgrading.
• "This fiscal year has no periods yet". Open Fiscal Years and generate the periods for that year first.
• The grid can't be edited. The budget is waiting for approval (click Back to draft), or it is approved or locked (click Revise). For a department budget, choose a department first.
• Import skipped some rows. The toast lists accounts it couldn't match. Check their codes and names against the downloaded sheet.