Create budgets in QuickBooks Online

Many businesses use budgets to plan their finances effectively. QuickBooks Online allows you to create profit and loss or balance sheet budgets for the coming year, month, or quarter. By comparing your actual income and expenses against your budget, you gain a clear overview of your business performance. 

Note: You can create a budget at any time, but it’s best to start at the beginning of the fiscal year.

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Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure that you meet these requirements:

• Sign in with an account that has budget access, such as an admin or standard all access user.
• Verify that every account you want to include in your budget is listed in your chart of accounts.
• Confirm your fiscal year start date is correct in the Advanced section of your Account and settings. Take me there.

Create a new budget

Follow these steps to build a budget directly in QuickBooks Online:

Follow this link to complete the steps in product 

1. Navigate to the budget section in your product.
2. Select Create new or Create budget.
3. Select either Profit and loss or Balance sheet.
4. Select the fiscal year for the budget.
5. For a Profit and loss budget, choose Consolidated budget or Subdivided budget.
6. For a Balance sheet budget, choose Yearly, Quarterly, or Monthly.
7. If you chose a subdivided budget, select your subdivision criteria, such as Location or Class.
8. Select Next.

Import a profit and loss budget

If you track financial plans externally, you can use AI-powered tools to import your project budget into QuickBooks. This process helps address mismatches or duplicates during mapping. Note that only profit and loss budgets can be imported.

Prepare your file for import

• Use an Excel spreadsheet of 10MB or less.
• Select Import budget.
• Choose your period, format, and pre-fill data to download the P&L budget_template.xlsx file.
• Open the template in Excel or Google Sheets and enter your budget for each account.
• Important: Do not add new columns or rows for additional accounts.
• Save the file with a unique name.

Complete the import

Follow this link to complete the steps in product 

1. Select Import budget in QuickBooks.
2. Choose the fiscal year.
3. Select Consolidated budget or Subdivided budget.
4. If subdivided, select the criteria like Location or Class.
5. Select Next.
6. Upload your formatted Excel file and select Next.
7. Select View budget once the process finishes.

Review and edit a budget

After you create or import your budget, review it to make sure it's accurate.

1. Select Edit ✎ and enter a name for your budget.
2. To use historical data, turn on Compare reference data and select your reference points.
3. To pre-fill data, check the box for each account, then select Copy reference data from the Batch actions dropdown.
4. Enter or adjust budget amounts for each account, switching between Yearly, Quarterly, or Monthly views as needed.
5. Select Save or Save and close.

Next steps

Once you’ve created a budget, you can copy it, run a report with it, edit it, or delete it.

Manage existing budgets

Follow this link to complete the steps in product 

Once your budget is active, you can perform the following actions:

• Copy a budget: Find the budget, select the dropdown ▼ in the Actions column, and select Duplicate.
• Run a budget report: In the Options column, select the dropdown ▼, then choose Run Budget Overview report or Run Budgets vs. Actuals report.
• Edit a budget: Select the budget, make your changes, and select Save or Save and close.
• Delete a budget: Check the box next to the budget, select the dropdown ▼ in the Actions column, and select Delete. Note: Deleted budgets cannot be recovered.

Related links

• Add and manage users
• User roles and access rights
• Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online
• Create and edit budgets in Spreadsheet Sync
• Get started with Spreadsheet Sync.
• Use collaborative budget planning