Income from Services

I've got your back, @RFBSDot. I'm here to help you formulate your budget using the actual income figures of the prior year.

In QuickBooks Online, you can create a budget based on your actual data. There's an option to pre-fill data from the previous or current year.

First, you'll need to make sure the beginning of your financial year is set. Follow these steps: 

1. Go to the Gear icon and select Account and Settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. In the Accounting section, review the First month of the financial year field. To change the date, select Edit.
4. Select the month from the drop-down list.
5. Click Save and then Done.

Once done, create your budget using your last year's actual data.

1. Select the Gear icon and choose Budgeting.
2. Click Add Budget.
3. Name your budget and select the financial year this budget is for.
4. Review the interval.
5. In the Pre-fill data field, select Actual data - 2021.
6. You can subdivide it by Customer, Class, or Location if you wish.
7. Select Create Budget. This will allow you to edit the budget.
8. Enter or edit the values. If you wish to have the same value month on month, or for every quarter, select the blue arrow to copy the value across all the fields.
9. Click Save and close.

If you don't wish to pre-fill data, you can base your budget on the prior year's Budgets vs. Actuals report. It'll list last year's income and expense types separately.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Gear icon and select Budgeting.
2. Find your budget on the list.
3. Click the Action dropdown and select Run Budgets vs. Actuals report.

You can also export this report to Excel. This way, you'll be able to compare your data efficiently while creating a budget. Click the Export icon and select Export to Excel.

You can always post a comment here if you need more help with running reports. I'd be happy to help, @RFBSDot.