The Budget vs. Actual view will provide you with some details of your budgeted accounts. Specifically, it can show you your budgets, actuals and budget less actual for various combinations of your income, expense and dedicated accounts for the selected fiscal year, month by month. This can help provide you with information on how your church is doing at meeting its budget expectations for the year, or provide you a look back at prior years to help inform your budgets for upcoming years.
- To access the Budget vs. Actual view, click on the "Plan/Analyze" tab, and then select "Budget vs. actual".
- Select which fiscal year you want to view in the "Fiscal year" field.
- You can choose which book's accounts you want to view in the "Book" field.
- In the "Account type" field, you can choose which account types you want to view. Options include "Income", "Expense", "Income, Expense", "Dedicated In", "Dedicated Out", "Dedicated (net)" (Which is Dedicated in minus dedicated out), and "(all)".
- The "Display" field lets you choose what kind of information you want about your accounts, and how you want it presented. Options include:
- Budget and actual: This option will show you a budget column and an actual column, side by side for each month in the fiscal year you selected. Budget columns will start with a "B:" and Actual columns will start with an "A:". After the actual column for the final month of your Fiscal year, you will see your Total Budget, Total Actuals, and Budget less actual for the selected fiscal year. You will also see columns that show the Responsibility code and Church body code for each account.
- Budget only: This option will show you only the budgets for each month of the selected fiscal year. Each monthly budget column will start with a "B:". At the end of your monthly budget columns, you will see a Total budget column, which totals your budget for the fiscal year. You will also see columns for the Responsibility code and Church body code for each account.
- Actual only: This option will show you only the actuals for each month of the selected fiscal year. Each monthly actual column will start with a "A:". At the end of your monthly actual columns, you will see a Total actual column, which totals your actuals for the fiscal year. You will also see columns that show the Responsibility code and Church body code for each account.
- Budget less actual: This option will provide you with a budget less actual figure for each month of your fiscal year. Negative figures will be displayed in parentheses. At the end of your budget less actual columns, you will see columns that show the Responsibility code and Church body code for each account.
- Under the "Hide accounts that are" heading, there are two checkboxes. The "Inactive" checkbox, when checked, will hide all accounts that are marked as inactive from this view. The "Not budgeted" checkbox, when checked, will hide any accounts that do not have a budget applied to them for the selected fiscal year.
- Click the "Find" button to apply your selections to the view.
- Clicking "Export" at the bottom of the grid will let you export your currently displayed view to your spreadsheet program.