Blog
Budgets
By Donna Brown
Budgeting in ProfitMaker
In the midst of running your business, you may wonder why you need to stop and put together a budget. A properly prepared and updated business budget can help you plan your monthly spending and help you realize your desired profits.
A budget is a forecast of all income and expenditures. It is organized in the same format as a financial statement, and most commonly covers a 12-month period. At the end of the year, the anticipated income and expenses developed in the budget are compared to the actual performance of the business as recorded in the financial statement.
A budget can greatly enhance your chances of success by helping you estimate future needs and plan profits, spending and overall cash flow. A budget allows you to perceive problems before they occur and alter your plans to prevent those problems.
In business, budgets help you determine how much money you have and how you will use it, and help you decide whether you have enough money to achieve your financial goals. As part of a business plan, a budget can help convince a loan officer that you know your business and have anticipated its needs.
Budgets can be set for any general ledger account marked as a Profit/Loss account. Monthly budgets can be entered on the second tab of the General Ledger Account Master. Budget amounts can be the same for each month or altered on a month by month basis.
You can find the General Ledger Account Master in the Tree View menus at
Applications | Masters/Codes | Maintenence | G/L Accounts
or in the Graphics Menu at the bottom of the screen with an icon as:
After budget amounts are entered, you can view the Profit & Loss Statement and include budgets with variances. This will show you the month to date and year to date budget amounts compared to the actual general ledger amounts and give you the variance dollar amount between what is actual and what was budgeted for each account.
The G/L Budget Analysis Report will show you the current budget for each Profit and Loss account and allow you to compare that with the actual balances from two different years. The budgets and balances will be broken down by month, quarter and year for easier analysis.
The budget analysis maintenance will allow you to see the current Year to Date balance, the current budget and make any necessary changes or adjustments. Adjustments can be made by entering in the new budget amounts or by increasing or decreasing the budget by a certain percentage.
Using budgets on your profit and loss general ledger accounts will allow you to forecast how the year is going to go. You can track how close you are to the desired budgets and make the necessary changes to keep on track.
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