I'm trying to understand the budgeting, forecasting and reporting capabilities before upgrading. Any demos I can review or someone to assist?

Hello, usercherie.

The Budget function exists on QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced versions. I take it that you have the Essentials edition. So before upgrading, I'll be happy to show you a brief overview on how you can create a budget sheet. 

You can definitely input a budget and pull up a Budget vs Actuals report. So when you upgrade your subscription, here's how you can create a budget sheet:

1. Click the Gear icon, then select Budgeting. 
2. Hit the Add a budget button.
3. Enter the name and select the fiscal year for your budget.
4. Set how you want the data to show.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Enter the budget amounts. 
7. Once done, hit Save.

To run a Budget vs Actuals report: 

1. Go to the Reports tab.
2. Type "Budget vs Actuals" in the search box.
3. Click the result.

For your second concern, are you trying to adjust your budgeted expenses and calculate the net income from the actual data? If so, you can edit the budget and set a new amount:

1. Go to the gear icon again, then select Budgeting.
2. Find the budget you want to adjust.
3. Click the arrow icon under ACTION.
4. Choose Edit.
5. Adjust the amounts for the accounts.
6. Once done, click Save. 

Also, you can see the calculation at the end of the Budget vs Actuals report:

If you simply want to compare the calculated revenue with the previous year, you can edit the Report period on the Budget vs Actuals report. Set the start date to January 1st of last year, then the end date for December 31st of the current year. Hit Run report afterwards. 

This article has more information about the Budgeting feature: Create and import budgets into QuickBooks Online.

You can also use our QuickBooks Online test drive companies. They have the Budget feature enabled so you can play around with the feature before deciding to upgrade. 

If you need to familiarize yourself with other features in QuickBooks Online, you can check out our articles here. We have guides that'll show you what else you can do in the platform. 

This is a busy month for business owners, so do let me know if you have other concerns or questions. I'll provide some guides and pointers to help you accomplish your tasks. 

Thank you James!

You're response was helpful! I really appreciate it. 

However the second part is not about net income but distributing costs and income across the year. IE we should defer revenue and recognize 1/12 of it every month. Same with annual services agreements. We may pay it all in a lump sum in one month, but use the service throughout the year, so the charge should be equally distributed across 12 months. Does that make sense? Does the budgeting capability accommodate doing that? 

Another issue I'm having is adding lines to the budget or customizing subcatagories. Ie if I have several contracts within Content Marketing... can I outline each separately? and have it roll-up to the larger? For example create a budget line for our Hubspot contract and another for our Content tool?

It's good to have you back, @usercherie,

Joining the thread to share some more information about budgets in QuickBooks Online. 

About your second question, you can enter amounts on a budget per month. However, when you run the Budgets vs. Actual reports, payments will post based on the accounting method used on the budget.

This means that income (Actual) will not automatically be distributed if the actual payment is made annually.

Also, the lines on the budget are based on the income or expense accounts added in the Chart of accounts. If you want to add a line, you must do it in the COA. I'm including articles that contain further information on this:

• Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online
• Understand Your Chart of Accounts
• How to Create a New Parent Account or Sub-Account

You can create as many budgets as you want, depending on the information you want to track. In order to do that, you can follow James steps to create a new budget for each contract or category.  

To get more information about adding budgets and handling reports in QuickBooks, see the following links:

• Create and import budgets into QuickBooks Online
• Run reports in QuickBooks Online

As always, this forum is always open if you have any questions with QuickBooks. Please post here and I'll be glad to help you.