How to Create Budgets in QuickBooks Online? (QuickBooks Budgeting)

Looking for how to create budgets in QuickBooks Online? In this article, we are to aid you with the steps to create it. Budgeting in QBO is very important for your business growth. Here in the article, we will discuss how you can create budgets and how they work in QuickBooks properly. Go through the article to get all the steps of the process to create a budget in QBO along with the process to copy, edit & delete the budget. You can also get connected with Intuit-certified ProAdvisors to discuss this topic in deep. call our QuickBooks Support toll-free+1-844-405-0904

How to make a budget in QuickBooks

The QuickBooks Online Budgets help you to see how well your company is performing and compare your actual revenues and expenses to your company’s budgeted amounts. In QuickBooks Online you can create budgets by Class, Location, or Customer, but not by two or all three. You can create a budget in QBO by only one category per budget.

Step 1: Setup the first month of the fiscal year

First, you need to find out when your first month of the financial year starts. Then, you can verify or change the financial year settings in QuickBooks.

• First, click on the Gear icon and then open settings.
• Next, select the Company Settings option.
• Here, select Advanced.
• Go to the Accounting section, open the First month of the Financial Year field, and verify whether the settings are correct or not. If not, then click on Edit and change it.
• Finally, Save and Done.

Step 2: Get budget data

You can have your financial data either from the current fiscal year or from the previous year’s fiscal year amount. If you are planning to use any historical report, then you should run a profit and loss details report to make sure that the transactions are perfectly assigned in the past.

By default, you will be seen a report with transactions created during the current financial year to the current date. But, if you want that your reports show the previous year’s financial year’s amount instead of the current year then follow the steps mentioned below to customize the reports.

• First, select Reports.
• Here, you need to find your Profit and Loss Details report.
• Then, From the Report period drop-down menu and select the Last Financial Year (If January is the first month of your fiscal year then select Last Year) to use the previous year’s data. If you want to use the current financial year data, then you can choose the default setting by selecting This Year-to-Date.
• And finally, Run the Report.

Step 3: Create a budget

You can create a budget using past financial data or previous budgets in QuickBooks. But, if you have not made any QBO Budget in the past then you can start here. Using QuickBooks Online to create a budget, you must add accounts if necessary, as QuickBooks Online creates the budget accounts list based on your charts of accounts.

• Firstly, you have to navigate to the Settings and then click on the Budgeting option.
• After that, choose the Create Budget tab.

Note: If it’s your first time then select Create a budget.

• You have to choose a Budget type “The default option is set to Profit and Loss.”
• Click on the Period Dropdown menu to select the necessary fiscal year.
• Choose the Budget format between Consolidated or Subdivided.

Note: If you want to subdivide the budget, choose what you want Subdivided by from subdivided by and subdivided for the dropdown menu.

• Select the reference data value that you want to prefill your budget from the dropdown menu of Pre-Fill data.
• Click on the Next.
• Follow the essential steps for the next process:
  • You can edit the automatically generated budget title by selecting the edit icon next to it.
  • If you want to include past actual or past budget data as a reference, turn on the Compare reference data switch and also select the reference data value that you want to use in Budget.
  • You can select all or individual rows next to the Accounts checkbox to prefill your budget with reference data. From the Batch actions dropdown, choose Copy reference data and then click Got it to complete the action.
  • You can clear the reference data by selecting the required rows and then using the Clear data option from the Batch actions dropdown and selecting Clear Data.

Tip: If you already prefilled your reference data then you can ignore the above steps.

• You should enter a budget for each account for every month.
• Then, select the Save and Close option.

Additional Step: Upload a budget using an Excel template

Upload a budget from a .xlsx file available on both QB Online and Advanced.

Step 1: Download a budget template

• Navigate to the Settings and then click on the Budgeting option.
• Click on the Import budget from the Create New dropdown menu.
• Choose the time period.
• Now, choose the subdivided budget (by class, customer, location, or other categories) or Consolidated (Company level) if you want to create.
• Click on the Next tab to make a template.
• Click on the P&L budget_template.xlsx link to get the template generated according to your selections.
• Save the file in an easily accessible location, such as the downloads folder on your computer.

Step 2: Create your Budget using the template

• Open the budget template in either Excel or Google Sheets.
• You are required to input your budget for each account for all listed months.

Note: Do not add extra columns or rows. If you want to include more accounts, add them to your chart of accounts before downloading the template.

• Once completed, save the changes.

Step 3: Upload your Template

• Go to the Settings and click on the Budgeting option.
• From the Create New dropdown menu, select the Import budget option.
• Select the fiscal year for the budget.
• Ignore the process by clicking the Skip option if you have a template.
• Search for the file and open it after choosing the Upload Budget option.
• Select View Budget after clicking Next to upload the Budget.
• You can edit the budget title by selecting Edit next to it.
• Check the cells and ensure that the amounts are correct in each account.
• If necessary, select a field and make the desired changes.
• At the end hit on the Save and Close option.

NOTE: Remember in QuickBooks Online you can create budgets only one year at a time. It also does not have the capability to do QBO Budget forecasting.

Run budget report

There is a feature in QuickBooks Online that is called a special budget report that will help you keep track of your budget goals.

• First, open settings by clicking on the Gear icon and selecting the Budgeting option.
• Here, you need to find your budget on the list.
• Then, in the Action drop-down menu, either select the Run Budget Overview report option or Run Budgets vs Actual reports.

In the budget overview report, you will be able to see the summarized budgets according to accounts, on the other hand, Budgets vs Actual reports summarizes account alongside your actual account totals. Here, you can also see how much you are under or over the budget.

Copy, Edit, and Delete a budget

How to copy an existing budget

• Select the Settings Gear icon then Budgeting.
• Locate the budget that you want to copy.
• From the drop-down menu on the right select copy.
• In the Copy Budget window, enter a new budget name and then enter the fiscal year.
• After that, click Create a Budget.
• Update the budget amounts.
• Click Save and close.

How to edit an existing budget

Follow the steps mentioned below if you want to make changes or edit a budget in QBO.

• First, open Settings and then select the Budgeting option.
• Here, in the list, you need to find your budget.
• Then, click on the Action drop-down menu and then select the Edit option.
• Next, you need to edit each account one month at a time.
• If you are currently using a month-to-month time period and want to change it to a quarterly or yearly period or vice-versa, then click on the Gear icon at the top of the budget and then either choose Quarter or Year.
• Once you are finished making the required changes, select Save.

Delete a budget

If you are planning to delete a budget then before doing that you have to be completely sure because once you deleted a budget then you can’t recover it again.

• First, go to Settings and then select the Budgeting option.
• Here, in the list, you have to find your budget.
• Then, click on the Action drop-down menu and then select the Delete option.

Run Budget Report

This helps you to run budget reports to track budget goals.

• Firstly you have to go to the setting ⚙ option.
• Then next go to Budgeting.
• Now you have to find your budget on the list.
• After getting your budget, go to the action button and then go to the Edit drop-down.
• You have to select Run budget overview report or Run budget overview report.

How budgeting in QBO work

After creating a budget you can determine upcoming income and expenses. Day by day you can compare actual income and expenses with your budget.

How to Categorize Budget Amounts:

A basic budget contains a hierarchy for each of your income and expenses accounts, A column is present there for each month. Besides you can track amounts in the interchange for each row and column.

A subdivided budget gives you the facility to be more specific about what you can track or not. You can track account amounts on a monthly basis for each class, location, department, and each customer.

Best ways to speed up data entry:

QuickBooks provides you with different ways to enter your data faster.

You can do it:

• By entering quarter/annual amounts and calculating monthly averages from them.
• And By entering an amount and copying it across the remainder of a row.
• By your initial budget on previous data.

Wrapping Up!

Above, in this discussed everything you need to know about creating a budget in QuickBooks Online. In addition to this, we’ve also discussed how you can copy, edit, and delete a budget also. And we’ve also shown you the things you need to know after you create budgets in QuickBooks.

We hope this will be helpful to you. If you also want to learn more about the budget and how does budgeting works, get in touch with our well qualified and experienced accounting experts at toll-free +1-844-405-0904.