A budget is the year you expect: what each income and expense account should come to, month by month. The actuals come from the same books the reports read, so the two cannot drift apart.
Set one up
- Open Accountant, Budgets and choose New budget. Give it a name and the dates, usually the financial year.
- Open it and choose Add an account.
- Type a figure for each month, or type the year’s figure and choose Spread evenly to share it across the months.
- Add as many accounts as you want to watch.
Read it
- The year shows each account’s plan, what was actually spent or earned, what is left and how much is used. Edit changes its months; the bin takes it out.
- Month by month shows the plan above the actual for every month. A month in red was spent over its plan.
- A group account, such as Salaries and wages, counts what was spent on every account under it.
- The band at the top shows income and expenses against their plans, and the profit they leave: what came in less what went out, ahead of or behind the profit planned.
Budgets need the Accountant module. Changing one account never touches the months of the others.
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.