1. Choose Company→Planning & Budgeting→Set Up Budgets.
If you haven’t yet set up a budget, QuickBooks displays the Create New Budget dialog box, as shown. If you’ve already set up a budget, another window appears, and you need to click the Create New Budget button to get to the Create New Budget dialog box.
The Create New Budget dialog box2. Select the year that you want to budget.
Use the date field to specify the fiscal year. You use the arrows at the end of the field to adjust the year number incrementally.
3. Select the type of budget that you want to create; then click Next.See those two radio buttons? They let you tell QuickBooks whether you want to create a budget of income and expense amounts (done with a pro forma profit and loss statement) or a budget of year-end asset, liability, and owner’s equity account balances (done with a pro forma balance sheet). Typically, you want to budget income and expense amounts (Profit and Loss radio button).
4. Provide any additional budgeting criteria and instructions; then click Next.Next, QuickBooks asks whether you want to budget by using additional criteria, such as Customer: Job information or Class information. You answer this question by selecting the radio button that corresponds to the budgeting criteria you want. (If you’re just starting, don’t worry about specifying additional criteria. Keep things simple to start.)
5. Indicate whether you want to start from scratch.QuickBooks asks whether you want to create a first draft by using last year’s numbers or whether you want to start from scratch. To answer this question, select the option button that corresponds to your choice. To budget from scratch, for example, select the Create Budget from Scratch radio button.
6. Click Finish.QuickBooks displays the Set Up Budgets window.
7. Do your budget.You use the Set Up Budgets window to identify the budgeted amounts that you plan for each account. Just click the monthly amount you want to budget and enter a value. If you say that you want to budget from scratch, by the way, QuickBooks shows a window with a bunch of empty columns (like the window shown). If you say that you want to base the coming year’s budget on last year’s real numbers, you see numbers in the columns.
The Set Up Budgets windowThe Budget drop-down menu, in the top-left corner of the Set Up Budgets window, lets you choose the budget you want to work with. Why? You can work with several versions of your budget. (To create a new budget, click the Create New Budget button, which guides you through the process described previously.)
To copy the amount shown in the selected box across the row, click the Copy Across button. This button lets you copy, for example, some amount you budgeted for January into February, March, April, May, and so on.
If you want to be a little fancier, you can select some budgeted amount and click the Adjust Row Amounts button. QuickBooks displays the Adjust Row Amounts dialog box, which lets you adjust the selected amount by some specified percentage of increase or decrease. If you want to increase the budgeted amount by, say, 25 percent per month, you use the Adjust Row Amounts dialog box.
8. Save your budgeting work.After you enter your Secret Plan, click Save to save your work and leave the Set Up Budgets window open. Or click OK to save your work but close the Set Up Budgets window.
The Adjust Row Amounts dialog boxYou can click Cancel if you don’t want to save your work (in case you’ve just been noodling around).