Budgets
A budget is a target for what each account should earn or spend in each period of a fiscal year. Compare it with what actually posted to answer "are we tracking to plan?" Budgets never post to the books; they are a separate set of numbers used only for comparison.
Open Reports → Budgets.
Create a budget
- Click to create a budget, give it a Name (for example 2026 Operating Plan), pick the Fiscal Year, and add an optional description. The fiscal year has to exist first — see Fiscal Years & Close Year.
- On the Edit Budget tab, pick an account and click Add Account. Repeat for each account you want to budget.
- Fill in the monthly amounts in the grid.
- Click Save Budget.
The budget list shows each budget's name, fiscal year, description and total. You can keep several budgets for the same year — Conservative, Base case, Aggressive — and compare each with actuals.
Budget: 2026 Operating Plan (fiscal year 2026)
Service Income Jan 12,000 Feb 15,000 Mar 18,000 … Total 220,000
Rent Jan 2,000 Feb 2,000 Mar 2,000 … Total 24,000
Budget vs Actual
Open a budget and choose the Budget vs Actual tab. Each budgeted account shows its Budget, Actual and Variance. For revenue, a positive variance means you earned more than planned; for expenses, it means you spent more.
Variances over about 10% are the ones to explain during the month-end close: a one-off, a price change, or a trend?
Tips
- Budget for the seasons you actually have. Splitting the annual total evenly across twelve months makes every seasonal month look like a variance. The grid doesn't force an even split.
- Match the fiscal year. A budget compares only against the fiscal year it was created for.
- Start from last year. Run last year's Income Statement with Monthly columns (Reports → Income Statement) and use it as the starting point for this year's amounts.