FinBoardHelp

Use a budget in reports

Updated

Budgets are added to a report when you create it, from the Budget vs Actual section of the FinBoard plugin.

Add a budget column

  1. Open a Google Sheet and launch the FinBoard extension.
  2. Click Create Report and pick your Company and report.
  3. Set the Report Period and the rest of the report as usual.
  4. Expand Budget vs Actual and open Add Budget.

The Add Budget dropdown showing the four options

Option What you get
No budget column Actuals only. The default.
Import budget from QuickBooks A budget maintained in QuickBooks.
Import budget from FinBoard A budget built in FinBoard.
I will fill in the budget An empty budget column to type into directly in the sheet.

Pick the budget and the comparison

Choosing Import budget from FinBoard reveals the rest of the section:

Budget vs Actual configured with a FinBoard budget selected

  • Select FinBoard Budget — which budget to use. The list shows active budgets for the selected company and fiscal year, so a draft budget will not appear here.
  • Add Variance — adds the difference between actual and budget.
  • Budget Over/Under — adds an over/under column.

Then click Create Report.

If the budget you want is not listed

Work down this list — the first two cover almost every case:

  1. The budget is still a draft. Budgets are created as drafts and must be set to Mark as Active before reports can see them. Check the Status column on the Budgets page.
  2. The fiscal year does not match. The dropdown is filtered to budgets for the year being reported.
  3. The company is wrong. Budgets belong to a company, and a consolidated group has its own, separate from its member entities.
  4. The source does not match. A company configured for QuickBooks budgets will not list FinBoard budgets, and the reverse.

QuickBooks budgets and custom calendars

“Import budget from QuickBooks” is unavailable when the report uses a custom fiscal calendar. QuickBooks budgets are always on the standard fiscal year, so their periods cannot be lined up with a 4-4-5 or similar. If you select a custom calendar, the field resets to No budget column.

If you need budget-versus-actual on a custom calendar, build the budget in FinBoard against that calendar instead — see Create a budget.