Create budgets in QuickBooks Online

by Intuit •

1318 •

Updated 8/21/2026 05:25

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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Video transcript

[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.

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).

How to create a budget

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

Go to Reports , then Financial planning, then Budgets (Take me there).
Select Create new or Create budget.
Select either Profit and loss or Balance sheet.
Select the fiscal year for the budget.
- For a Profit and loss budget, choose Consolidated budget or Subdivided budget.
- For a Balance sheet budget, choose Yearly, Quarterly, or Monthly.
If you chose a subdivided budget, select your subdivision criteria, such as Location or Class.
Select Next.

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.
Select 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

Go to Reports , then Financial planning, then Budgets (Take me there).
Select Import budget.
Choose the fiscal year.
Select Consolidated budget or Subdivided budget.
If subdivided, select the criteria like Location or Class.
Select Next.
Upload your formatted Excel file and select Next.
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.

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

Manage existing budgets

Go to Reports , then Financial planning, then Budgets (Take me there). 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.