Introduction - Create budgets manually
A budget is an overview of planned expenses and revenues. An important tool for companies, a budget is used in business intelligence to measure the actual financial operation of the business against the forecast.
With the Budget feature in Business Central, you can:
Create multiple budgets for identical time periods.
Create simple or complex budgets by selecting a combination of G/L account, period, two global dimensions, and four budget dimensions.
Copy budgets from previous periods and revise actual figures or budget figures by using an adjustment factor.
Export budgets to and import budgets from Excel.
When you want to start entering a budget, the first step is to create a budget name.
You can set up multiple budgets for identical time periods by creating budgets with separate names on the G/L Budgets page.
When you create a new budget name, you must determine whether you want to use dimensions.
The two global dimensions are available on all budgets.
You can specify four additional budget dimensions on each budget.
You can use budget dimensions to set filters on a budget and add dimension information to budget entries. Budget dimensions let you use dimensions in budgets in the same manner as you would use them when posting sales and purchases.
For example, you can compare the actual sales by region with the budgeted sales by region.
To set up a G/L budget, follow these steps:
Select the Search for Page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter G/L budgets, and then select the related link.
Select New.
In the Name field, enter a unique identifier for this budget.
In the Description field, enter a short description.
In the Budget Dimension Code field, select the drop-down list and select the relevant dimensions as needed.
You can edit the budget by double-clicking the line or by selecting Edit Budget.
Watch this video demonstration of manually creating a general ledger budget.
Watch this video demonstration to learn how to enter dimensions into budgets.