How To Create A Budget In QuickBooks Pro
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One of the best ways to stay on top of business finances is to budget. QuickBooks allows you to create a yearly budget for your business.
While deciding on a budget can be a bit time-consuming, actually creating a budget in QuickBooks Pro only takes six steps.
In this post, we’ll walk you through how to set up your budget, choose the proper budgeting options, and run budgeting reports.
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Create A Budget
To begin, go to Company > Planning & Budgeting > Set Up Budgets.
Step 1: Select Budget Year
Use the arrows to select the year for which you want to create this budget.
Step 2: Choose Budget Type
Choose the budget type. You can create a Profit and Loss budget or a Balance Sheet budget.
The Profit and Loss budget offers a more complete view of your yearly activity, whereas the Balance Sheet budget deals predominantly with your ending balances. For our sample company, we’re going to choose the Profit and Loss option.
Once you select Profit and Loss, click the blue “Next” button at the bottom of the screen. If you select Balance Sheet, click the blue “Finish” button and proceed to step 5.
Step 3: Add Additional Criteria (Optional)
If you want, you can create budgets for specific customers and jobs by clicking the “Customer:Job” option. Or, you can click “No additional criteria” to make a general yearly budget.
Once you’ve decided, click the blue “Next” bottom at the bottom of the screen.
Step 4: Choose Budget Creation Preferences
Choose between “create budget from scratch” or “create budget from previous year’s data.”
Using previous years’ data can be helpful and provide insight when creating a budget. However, our sample company is brand new, so we’re going to select the first option.
Step 5: Enter Your Budget
Now enter your budget goals for each month and each account. This part takes some time and thought.
I recommend using QuickBooks reports to help give you some insight into your sales and expense patterns. Learn how to take advantage of reports by reading How To Run Reports In QuickBooks Pro.
Tip: Make your budget practical. If you want to have $5,000 in sales each month, don’t just put the number in QuickBooks. Break that goal down into actionable, manageable steps. Think of practical marketing and advertising practices that could help you reach this goal.
Step 6: Save
Once your budget starts to look something like this, it’s time to save your masterpiece.
To save your budget, click “Save.”
At any time, you can run reports to view the status of your budget. QuickBooks Pro offers the following budget reports:
- Budget Overview
- Budget vs. Actual
- Profit & Loss Budget Performance
- Budget vs. Actual Graph
For troubleshooting issues, check out the QuickBooks Community or call QuickBooks directly. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our QuickBooks Desktop Pro 101 Series to learn how to run budget reports, create projects, track time, and more.
Overwhelmed by QuickBooks Pro? Maybe it’s time to switch to QuickBooks Online. QBO is easy to use, cloud-based, and affordable. Best of all, you can easily import your QuickBooks Desktop data into QuickBooks Online.
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Chelsea Krause
Content Strategist - Accounting & eCommerce
Chelsea Krause is a writer who has specialized in accounting for over three years and is a QuickBooks Certified User. She has a BA in English & Creative Writing from George Fox University and studied at the University of Oxford as well. She has been quoted in Forbes and her work appears in Startup Nation, Small Business Bonfire, and Women on Business.
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Can this same approach be used to estimate end-of-year P&Ls and Balance Sheets to help forecast taxes due so as to plan year-end tax-saving strategies?
Hi Janice,
Thanks for reaching out! You can create a profit and loss budget report in QuickBooks Pro. There is not a balance sheet budget report, but you can use the budgeting tool to forecast the accounts you would normally find on a balance sheet. Hope this helps!
Best wishes,
-Chelsea Krause
Thank you – very helpful!