Create a budget
In the side menu choose Budgets, then New budget (1). Choose the Fiscal year, type the Budget name and press Create. It starts as a draft, and the variance report does not read it until you approve it.
A budget uses revenue and expense accounts only. If there is no fiscal year yet, one appears with its first journal.
Fill in the figures one of three ways
- Copy last year: takes last year's actual for each month and adds your Uplift %. This is the quickest.
- Spread a yearly figure: type one yearly amount for an account and it is split evenly across the months.
- Type the month yourself: edit any cell in the grid directly, then press Save changes.
The grid has accounts down and months across, with planned revenue and planned net profit above it. If you keep cost centres, you can write lines for each centre.
Approve the budget
- Draft
- Approve
- Compare with actual
- Archive
Compare with actual
Press Compare with actual (2 in the first picture), or open Budget vs actual from Reports. Choose a month or a date range, and filter by cost centre if you like. The actual column comes from the income statement itself.
A Variance is positive when the result is better than the plan: higher revenue or lower expense. Negative variances show in red, so start with those.
