Create or update a budget in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac

Learn how to set up or update a budget in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac.

Many businesses use a budget to track actual versus budgeted amounts through budget reports. Once you create or set up your budget, you can run a financial report. You can start to track budgets for income and expenses. You can even do balance sheet accounts.

Set up a budget

You can set up a budget for an account, or a Customer: Job or Class within an account. Just enter budget amounts for either income, expense, or balance sheet accounts you wish to track.

1. Go to the Company menu, then select Set Up Budget.
2. In the Creating a Budget screen, select Next.
3. Select the fiscal year for this budget.
4. Select an account for your budget, then select Next.
5. Select whether you want to separate your budget by Customer: Job or Class, and select Next.
   Note: If you have class tracking enabled you can track budget amounts by class.
6. Select whether you’d like to add budget numbers from scratch or have QuickBooks use the previous year’s data.
   • If you start from scratch, select Done.
     You’ll see a spreadsheet with an empty amount of cells. Select any of these cells, type an amount, then select Save.
   • If you start from the previous year’s data, select Next.
     You’ll see a sheet explaining QuickBooks will use data from the previous fiscal year to generate the new budget. Select Done.

Update a budget

You can always go back to the budget and make changes to it. Here’s how.

1. Go to the Company menu, then select Set Up Budget.
2. From the Budget ▼ dropdown menu, select the fiscal year of the budget you want to change.
   • For an income or expense account: Enter the amount you project for the account for each month.
   • For a balance sheet account: Enter the end balance you project for the account for each month
3. Apply the changes you need.
   • You can change or add an amount in the column next to the account you want to change.
   • You can enter an amount in the Total column, then QuickBooks will calculate the monthly and quarterly amounts.
   • You can right-click a cell and select an option to speed your data entry.

QuickBooks displays the columns in your budget according to the preferences you’ve set. 

If you change these preferences, you’ll need to refresh your budget to see the new column arrangement. To change this:

1. Go to QuickBooks, select Settings menu, then select My Company.
2. Then the first month is the fiscal year.

Create reports about your budget

QuickBooks for Mac offers six types of budget reports. You can create these after you set up a budget. Here’s how.

1. Go to the Reports menu, then select Budgets.
2. Select one of the following reports:
   • Profit and Loss Budget Overview: This shows your monthly budget amounts for each income and expense account.
   • Profit and Loss Budget vs. Actual: This shows your monthly budget amounts for each income and expense account including the actual amount you spend. It also shows you the difference between your budgeted and actual amounts.
   • Profit & Loss Budget by Job Overview: This shows your total budget amounts by customer and job for each income and expense account.
   • Profit & Loss Budget vs. Actual by Job: This shows your total budget amounts by customer and job for each income and expense account. It also includes the actual amount you spent on each job and the difference between your budgeted and actual amounts.
   • Balance Sheet Budget Overview: This shows your monthly budget amounts for each balance sheet account.
   • Balance Sheet Budget vs. Actual: This shows your monthly budget amounts for each balance sheet account. It also includes the actual account balances as of the last day of the month and the difference between your budgeted and actual account balances.

Some tips to see how you're doing against a budget: