Description
Create budgets for your organization to better project and control activity across your entities, departments, cost centers, etc. at the Ledger Account level. With the created budget(s), you can compare against the Actual figures from the transactions created within your system.
Important Considerations
Income Statement Type budgets for Revenue and Expense Ledger Accounts should be entered as non-cumulative values, meaning the values are the input for the expected activity for that monthly period alone. The Budget vs. Actual Report can switch between cumulative and non-cumulative views at the reporting stage.
Balance Sheet Type budgets for Asset, Equity, and Liability Ledger Accounts should be entered as the cumulative ending balance for each monthly period to match how Balance Sheet Type Accounts display Actual balances.
Budget naming can be used to identify a budget created for a particular Dimension (such as creating a budget by department through the creation of a Cost Center ->Sales budget, or the like).
The budget values will be created in the reporting currency of the Location selected at budget creation.
When downloading the Budget Template, it can be helpful to highlight the Number column in Excel and click into Data->Text to Columns->Finish. This can be helpful if running formulas using the Ledger Account Number.
Budget Creation
Create budgets under the Financial section from the left panel menu and selecting Budget Creation and then +New.
Inputs for each Budget
For each budget, you will need to determine the following details for the budget when creating:
Name - a unique and recognizable name to be selected at reporting and/or grouping stage.
Description - an optional additional description to the budget.
Location - the SoftLedger Location the budget is being created within (the budget values will be in the reporting currency of this Location).
Start and End Date - the date the budget spans to return the monthly periods for the budget to be created against.
Budget Account Type
Income Statement - for Revenue and Expense Type Ledger Accounts.
Balance Sheet - for Asset, Equity, and Liability Type Ledger Accounts.
Budget Template and Upload
Download Budget Excel Template
Once you have selected the Location, Dates, and Budget Account Type, download an excel template for the Ledger Accounts and Month(s) available to be created for the budget.
The Ledger Accounts and months included in the downloaded template will directly relate to the selections made for Budget Account Type, Location, and Start and End Dates.
Upload Budget Excel Template
Within an excel, add the relevant budget values for each Ledger Account/Month combination, save, and then access through the Upload Values button.
Once you have uploaded values, see them reflected in the table within the Add Budget window, where you can edit values.
Managing Budgets
You can always return to edit, delete, or copy a budget once created and it exists in the budget table. Click into the budget from the table to bring up the details of that budget with the options at top:
If creating multiple versions of similar budgets, or modifying an existing budget where you would like to keep historical versions, utilize the copy budget feature for efficiency in creating multiple budgets.