How to create budgets in QuickBooks Online

[0:00] Hi, this is Jason from the QuickBooks team. You can create budgets in QuickBooks to help you plan for the future and then run reports to see if you met your targets. We'll go over how to set up a budget and then run a budget versus actuals report to measure your performance. Note that budgeting is only available in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. Select Settings. Budgeting.

[0:30] In QuickBooks Online Plus, you can create a budget or import a budget from a CSV file. If you use QuickBooks Online Advanced, you have those options... Plus, you can build your budgets in Excel with spreadsheet sync. This other video will show you how to do that. If you choose to import a budget, make sure to download this template and use it when you fill out your budget outside of QuickBooks.

[0:55] This will help simplify the import process. In this video, we'll create a new budget in QuickBooks. First, select the kind of budget you want to make. A profit and loss budget helps you track your performance like income and expenses against your predicted results.

[1:15] A balance sheet budget helps you track your financial position like bank account balances and loan amounts over time and against what you expect. When you create a balance sheet budget you enter a target ending balances and use the status bar to help you balance the amounts. Let's set up a profit and loss budget. Then select the year you want to create a budget for.

[1:43] Consolidated budgets help you budget for your entire organization, and subdivided budgets help you budget for specific customers. Let's create a budget for the entire organization. QuickBooks automatically names the budget, but you can change that here.

[2:01] If you have actual financial data or budgets from previous years, QuickBooks displays that data here but you can choose to reference different data from this menu or use this toggle to turn it off entirely. If you want to copy the reference data to the new budget, select the checkbox and then batch actions. Copy reference data. And if you change your mind, you can also choose to clear the data.

[2:30] You can also switch between filling out your budget for the entire year or entering quarterly or monthly amounts. To enter or change a number into it in the appropriate field. You can copy this same number on the fields to the right, or if you've entered a budgeted amount and want to divide it evenly among the fields to the left, select this button.

[2:54] When you're finished filling out the budget Select, Save and Close. QuickBooks lists all of your budgets. If you ever need to change the budget, select it to make changes. You can also select the dropdown menu to run reports related to a specific budget. Archive it. Duplicate it or delete it. If you archive a budget, you'll no longer see it.

[3:18] But you can still toggle on this option to see your archived budgets. This is also where you can create an important new budgets. Select Settings - Budgeting to return to the screen at any time. After you've recorded transactions that affect your financial statements, you can start comparing your actual performance to your budget. Select reports and run the budget versus actuals report.

[3:46] You can view your actual numbers which come from the transactions you've recorded compared to what you budgeted, whether or not you went over budget and what percent of the budget you've used. The report only shows results from one budget at a time. You can choose between different budgets here.

[4:05] You can also change the date range of transactions QuickBooks uses to build the report and customize the report in other ways. Now you're ready to create a budget in QuickBooks and compare your company's performance to the budget.