How to create a Budget in QuickBooks?

QuickBooks on-line (QBO) supports making ready budgets, that assist you monitor, track, and compare expected financial gain and expenses with actual financial gain and expenses. After you prepare a budget, you usually prepare it for a year, and you'll choose to provide budget amounts or use historical amounts from QBO. Follow the blog to know How to create a budget in QuickBooks

Steps to create a Budget in QuickBooks

Before you make a budget, it is important to specify the first month for the fiscal year and review historical amounts.

Step 1: Set the fiscal year's first month

It is important to check that the fiscal year setting is proper so that a budget can be prepared with the first month of the fiscal year.

1. Choose the Gear icon at the top, then click on Account and Settings (or Company Settings).
2. Press Advanced.
3. Examine if the first month of the fiscal year is right. If it is not correct then proceed to press the pencil icon in the Accounting section and set the right First month of the fiscal year.
4. Press Save.

Step 2: Review historical amounts

If you are planning on basing your budget on historical data, then you may access a Profit and Loss Detail report to ensure transactions were assigned correctly in the previous days.

By default, this report displays transactions that were built during this fiscal year to date. Also, you can base your budget on the last fiscal year's amounts alternatively. Hence, you should customize the report to show those amounts instead.

To show the last fiscal year's amounts instead:

1. Press Reports from the left menu.
2. Open Profit and Loss Detail.
3. Under Report period, select Last Fiscal Year (or Last Year if the first month of your fiscal year in January).
4. Press Run report.

Step 3: Make the budget

After you have checked the fiscal year and historical profit and loss, you can now build the budget.

1. Press the Gear icon at the top, then click on Budgeting.
2. Press Add budget.
3. Enter a budget name in the Name
4. From the Fiscal Year drop-down, choose the fiscal year for the budget.
5. From the Interval drop-down, select if the budget will be Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
6. This step is optional. From the Prefill data drop-down, choose if you wish to prefill the budget with data. You may select to prefill your budget with actual data from a past year.
7. (Optional) From the Subdivide by drop-down, choose if you want to split it by Class, Customer, or Location. After you have done that, you may proceed to choose what class, customer, or location to add to the budget. The preview will update to show the split.
8. Select Next.
9. If you haven’t prefilled the budget earlier, fill in the table now. You can also edit the amounts at whenever you want.
10. To save the budget, choose Save or Save and close.

Edit an existing budget

If a new budget has been made then the existing budget reports will not be suspended or affected. While you plan on editing a budget, the amounts must be edited too.

1. Press the Gear icon, then click on Budgeting.
2. Navigate the budget you want. In the Action column, press Edit from the drop-down menu.
3. Edit the budget name if you wish to do so.
4. Edit the budget amounts for every corresponding account.
5. (Optional) In case you're editing a subdivided budget, choose the Show rows as drop-down to change the criteria the budget is subdivided by.
6. (Optional) To change budget interval, select the Gear icon in the upper right and choose from Month, Quarter, or Year.
7. When this is done, you may choose to Save or Save and close.

Copy an existing budget

When you copy an existing budget it authorizes you to make a new budget by using the budget account that you already have. This is, therefore, very helpful if you wish to use the budget info for a previous fiscal year to create a new budget

1. Press the Gear icon at the top, then tap on Budgeting.
2. Find the budget you wish to copy. In the Action column, choose the drop-down menu and then tap on Copy.
3. On the next screen, enter the new budget name and fiscal year.
4. Press Create Budget.
5. Update the budget amounts, then choose to Save or Save and Close.

Delete an existing budget

1. Choose the Gear icon, at the top, then tap on Budgeting.
2. To delete a budget, you may choose Delete budget in QuickBooks from the drop-down in the Action column.

View email print 

There are two types of budget report you can run and then email, print, or export to Excel:

• Budget Overview: This report displays a summary of budgeted amounts for a particular budget.
• Budget vs Actuals: This report shows a summary of budgeted amounts versus actual amounts and their variances and variance percentages.

To view these reports:

1. Press the Gear icon at the top, then choose Budgeting.
2. Navigate the desired budget. From the drop-down in the Action column, select Budget Overview reporter Budget vs. Actuals report.
3. (Optional) Once open, you can then email, print, or export the budget:
4. 
   
   • In the upper right, choose the Email icon to email the budget report.
   • Press the Print icon to print the budget report.
   • Click on the Export icon to export the budget report to Excel or PDF.

We hope that the aforementioned information helped you How to create a budget in QuickBooks Desktop. Contact QuickBooks 24/7 Support Phone Number 1-888-502-0363 and Upgrade QuickBooks Desktop for more information.