Budgets: plan your year and compare it with what happened

A budget is your plan for a year: an amount for each income and expense account, month by month. Then Budget vs. actuals puts what really came in and went out beside it, so you can see where you're over or under while there's still time to do something about it. Budgets never change your books.

Owners, admins and accountants make and change budgets. Anyone who can see reports can run the budget reports.

Add a budget

1. 1Open the gear menu › Tools › [Budgets](/budgets) and press Add budget.
2. 2Give it a Name (each budget has its own) and choose the Fiscal year: last year, this year or the next two, starting in the month your fiscal year starts (Settings › Advanced).
3. 3Choose who it's for: The whole business, a customer (all of it), or one of a customer's projects. A project's page also has Add a budget under Reports. If you track classes or locations, a budget can be for one class or location (with those under it) too.
4. 4Choose how to start: Blank amounts, Actual amounts from the year before, month by month (for a customer or project, its own amounts from that year), or A copy of another budget (any year), with every amount changed by a percentage if you like (5 for 5% more, -10 for 10% less). Starting from last year and changing what you expect to be different is the quickest way.
5. 5Press Next: fill in the amounts.

Fill in the amounts

The budget is a grid: your income and expense accounts down the side, grouped like the profit and loss (Income, Cost of goods sold, Expenses, Other income, Other expenses), and the year's 12 months across, with a total for each row and section, Gross profit and Net income at the bottom.

• Type each month's amount. Income and expenses are both entered as positive amounts.
• To spread a yearly amount evenly, type it in the row's Total and press Enter (any odd cents go on the first months, so it adds up exactly).
• Prefer quarters, or one amount for the year? Choose Enter by › Quarters or Year above the grid. Each quarter (of your fiscal year) or the year shows what its months add up to; type an amount and it's spread evenly over its months. Switch back to Months any time to fine-tune.
• The arrow next to an account copies its first month to every month.
• Press Save. Saving replaces the budget's amounts with what's on the screen; if you leave with changes not saved, your browser asks first.
• Bringing a budget over from your old app? Make the budget for that year here, then press Fill from your old app's budget and choose its budget report exported to Excel or CSV (a row per account, a column per month). Accounts are matched by name and the months fill this budget's months; check them, then Save.

The grid is widest on a computer. On a phone, it scrolls sideways with the account names kept in view.

Budget vs. actuals

Reports › Business overview › [Budget vs. actuals](/reports/budget-vs-actuals) (or the link on the budget and in Budgets) shows each account's Actual, Budget, Over budget (actual − budget) and % of budget, with totals and Net income.

• Choose the Budget at the top. It opens on the budget's whole year; choose a Report period (like This year to date) for part of it.
• The budget column counts every month the dates touch: for This month to date, the whole month's budget is shown beside the month so far.
• For the whole business, actuals are your profit and loss for the dates, on the cash or accrual basis you choose; for a class or location, that class's or location's profit and loss. For a customer or project, they're its income and costs as on the project's page (its sales, and what's put on its projects: bill and expense lines, bank transactions, journal entries and expense claims), on the accrual basis.

[Budget overview](/reports/budget-overview) shows the budget itself, a column for each month and the total. Like every report, both can be printed, downloaded (Excel or CSV), emailed and saved.

Copy a budget

1. 1Open the budget and press Copy (or choose A copy of another budget in Add budget).
2. 2Choose the Fiscal year and who the copy is for (it starts as the same as the original), and give it a name.
3. 3Optionally type a percentage in Change every amount by: 5 makes every amount 5% more, -10 makes it 10% less.
4. 4Press Next: fill in the amounts. Each month gets the same month of the original (the third month of its year gets the third month's amount), and the original isn't changed.

Change or delete a budget

Open it from Budgets to change its name or amounts. Delete budget at the bottom deletes it and its amounts. A project that has a budget can't be deleted until the budget is.