QBO just dont get project budgets. This is because they are an accountant centric organisation. They are not business led, despite the adverts. Its also clear in the software which is hugely complex to use as a small professional services business owner. To work around this issue of tracking projects, I have to create a separate excel sheet with my project budget. Each week I then extract the time allocated to each project from QBO and import that into my excel which then tells me how many days i have left on the project. Its a very simple concept for QBO to implement. But why would QBO want to support  small professional services businesses. They just dont get it. There must be a better alternative than QBO.

Would have to say here that QBO blows Xero away in terms of reporting and reconciliation reporting.

I am a heavy XERO user and it's a great platform for general booking and accounting - it also has the best App Store.

However, the biggest drawback with Xero Projects is that its impossible to find unassigned transactions. There is no way to run a report to track down errant expenses and make sure they are included in the relevant project (either for P&L analysis or re-billing). This makes the Project module effectively unusable if re-billing of expenses is a key part of the business model.

QBO at least has the ability to run a transaction report and easily ID (and then assign) transactions that haven't previously been assigned to a project. You can save a customized report template and run it daily to easily find-and-assign all cost transactions.  

I agree, having a project option for managing the costs is great but attaching a budget to it does help enormously, saves a lot of double entry points. The budgeting currently is to complicated, almost useless when you cant add a budget to the project. I would expect better from QB frankly.

I have no "add budget" button, just a "create budget" button which doesn't let me set an annual budget just a monthly one

Let me share some information about how budgets work in QuickBooks Online (QBO) Plus and Advanced.

The Add budget button was already updated to Create budget to help you with comparing your actual income and expenses with your budget. Also, the Profit and loss and Balance sheet are the two kinds of Budget type. For Profit and loss, we have the option to set the default for the Annual or Fiscal year. For the Balance sheet, we can choose Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly. See the screenshots for your reference:

If you need to run a budget where you can change the period to Compare reference data by yearly, quarterly, and monthly, just choose Profit and Loss. Here's how:

1. Go to the Gear icon on the top menu. Then, select Budgeting.
2. Click Create budget.
3. Choose the Budget type: Profit and loss.
4. Select the fiscal year you're creating the budget for.
5. Click the Budget format: Consolidated budget or Subdivided budget.
6. For a subdivided budget, select what you want to subdivide by, like location or class.

 You can check out these articles to learn more about managing budgets and personalizing your reports in QuickBooks:

• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online
• Create budgets in QuickBooks Online.

I'm just a reply away if you need help with budget reports or anything else related to QuickBooks. I'm just here to help. You have a good one. 

QBO does not yet have Budgeting Capability.  Comparing a company's balance sheet and P&L to the same companies own controlled internal spending IS NOT BUDGETING. THAT IS CALLED PLANNING AS A COMPANIES BALANCE SHEET AND P&L ARE NOT EXTERNAL FUNDING SOURCES TO A COMPANY AND ARE INTERNAL TO A COMPANY WHERE THE COMPANY HAS 100% CONTROL.    BUDGETING IS WHEN A COMPANY HAS TO MANAGE ITS SPENDING VERSUS AN "EXTERNAL FUNDING SOURCE WHERE LIMITS ARE ESTABLISHED BY OTHERS OUTSIDE OF THE COMPANY"-QBO Currently cannot do this.  One of the main issues is that QBO software developers do not seem to understand the difference between "Planning" VS "Budgeting" and QBO needs to get experienced business accounting professionals on staff that can advise on how to develop these features in the future.  QBO has does not yet have budgeting capability. What QBO currently has is capability for business can set its own internal targets for its own internal spending tracked by its own internal balance sheet or P&L (ie Planning). If a company has an external "professional services" new contract from a customer and the customer tells the company what the company $ contract spending limit and Time charging limit are QBO currently has no way for the company to provide reporting back the customer when employees have competed say 50% of budgeted contract time or when the company has completed 75% of the customer established contract $ budget. It is hoped QBO will establish budgeting capability at some point.

Thanks, but I don't have the blance sheet option which appears to be what I need. I see the attached:

Thanks RCV  but I don't have the options you say are available. There is no "balance sheet" option as you ilustrate. Can you please tell me how to set the starting value for an individual class in a budget? I've attached a screen shot by way of confirmation.

Thanks,

Cath