Balance Sheet Budgeting in QuickBooks Online
Hey there, friends! I am hopping into Insightful Account’s feed to bring you a sprinkle of fun to the world of debits, credits, and... budgets! Note: If you didn’t smile at this, drink more coffee! 😉
Today, I’m diving into QuickBooks Online Balance Sheet Budgeting feature which is fairly new. Check out the video above to learn more!
Subscription levels required
First things first, to access this feature, you’ll need QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced.
Getting started
To get started, navigate to the Budget tab on the left side of your screen and select the Budget tab.
You can select the period for your budget – whether it’s for the fiscal year, or you prefer a monthly or quarterly glimpse into the future.
If you're into the old-school way of doing things, you can import budgets from Excel. But c'mon, we're adventurers, let’s build this from scratch!
How do you want to set up your budget?
Click 'Next', you’ll see fields for each month. If you would like to replicate the totals for the row, hit the blue arrow, and it’ll populate every column in that row.
Reference Data
With reference data, you can choose to see your balance as of today, last month, last quarter, or even last year. Toggle on the "Compare reference data" to see live data comparisons. There is also a Details bar at the top of the report. It’s your budget’s summary, always there to remind you of the big picture.
Profit and Loss Budgeting
Traditional Profit and Loss budgets are still available as well using the Budgets tab.
Traditional Profit and Loss Budgets
Profit and Loss budgeting vs. Actual
Once you build a budget, the most powerful way to use it is to compare it with actual data. When using this, it will provide insights into different management decisions.
Profit and Loss Budgeting vs. Actual
Balance Sheet Budgeting in QuickBooks Online is simple, intuitive, and, dare I say, a little bit fun. Give it a try, happy budgeting!