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How do I create a budget?

Describes how to create a budget in accounting.

You will need the Full Write Accounting permission to perform this action.

You can create and manage your annual budgets for income and expense accounts. To get started, go to Accounting > Budgets in the left-hand menu and click + Add New at the top. To edit an existing budget, click its name in the table.

A pop-up will appear with the following fields:

Year

Required. This is the year you are budgeting. The budget runs across your fiscal year, and a note under the field shows the months it covers (for example, Budget goes from January to December). To change which months your fiscal year uses, click the Change fiscal year link below the field, or set it under Accounting > Settings > Options in the left-hand menu.

Name

A name for the budget. If left blank, the name defaults to Budget [Year] — for example, if you select 2027, the name defaults to Budget 2027.

Description

Optional. Add any notes you want to store with this budget.

Status

Required. Choose Draft or Published. A draft budget stays private and does not appear in reports, so you can plan it before sharing. Set it to Published when it is ready to appear in reports.

Tag Group

Optional. If you use accounting tags, choose a tag group to budget along that dimension — such as department or campus. Every line in the budget is then tagged with a value from that group. Leave it set to No tag group to skip tagging. See How do I use accounting tags? for full setup, and the Budgeting by tag section below.

Once the required fields are filled in, click Save to create the budget. You are then taken to the budget screen, where you can start entering the budget details.


Designing a budget

You can reach the budget screen by creating a budget as shown above, or by clicking the name of an existing budget under Accounting > Budgets in the left-hand menu.

This screen lists your income and expense accounts down the left side, grouped under Income and Expense, with a yearly Total column and one column per month across the top. Use the arrows in the left column to expand or collapse a group, or use Expand All and Collapse All at the top right to open or close everything at once.


Choosing a fund to edit

Amounts are budgeted one fund at a time. When the Filter by Fund dropdown at the top is set to All Funds, the amounts are shown as read-only totals across every fund, and a note reminds you that amounts are not editable while "All Funds" is selected. To enter or change amounts, choose a single fund from the Filter by Fund dropdown.


With a fund selected, click on any account to to open an account pop up, here you can enter the desired amounts and select save.

Choosing which accounts and funds appear

Use Edit Budget Accounts at the top of the screen to choose which income and expense accounts are included in the budget, and Edit Budget Funds to choose which funds the budget covers. Each opens a panel where you can check or uncheck items, so the budget shows only the accounts and funds you want to plan for.

To set amounts for a single account across the months, expand the account in the table and enter the figures. The example below shows the per-account view from the previous version.


Reports

You can export or print the budget in a few ways from the budget screen.

Budget Details (print)

Click the print icon at the top right of the table to generate a PDF of the budget exactly as shown on screen. Anything you have collapsed or hidden in the table is left off the PDF as well.


The Actions menu at the top of the screen holds the rest of the budget options, including the reports below. The Actions menu also lets you re-open the budget settings with Edit budget, reset entered figures with Clear all amounts, and remove the budget with Delete.

Overview

Open Actions > Overview for a high-level summary of the budget, such as total amounts by account category and fund. Here is a sample of this report:

Export CSV

Open Actions > Export CSV to export the entire budget, including all accounts and funds. This export always returns all data — every month and every fund — even if you are currently filtering the on-screen table to a single fund.


Budgeting by tag

If you use accounting tags, you can budget along a tag dimension — like department or campus — not just by account. When you add or edit a budget, choose a Tag Group in the budget's settings, alongside the Year, Name, and Status fields. Every line in the budget is then tagged with a value from that group; leave the field blank to skip tagging.

Tagging the budget is what lets a tag-filtered Budget to Actual report compare like with like — the budgeted column and the actual column both narrow to the same tag value. For full setup, see How do I use accounting tags?


Once your budget is published, these numbers can be viewed alongside your income and expense actuals by running the Budget to Actual report under Accounting > Reports in the left-hand menu.

Note that you can create multiple budgets for the same year. If more than one published budget exists for a given year, the amounts are combined when viewing the Budget to Actual report.

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