Budgeting methods

• Standard - Basic monthly budgeting by individual nominal record only. You can view your budget, actual and previous year figures. The information can also be viewed in graph.
• Advanced - Nominal Code - This method is similar to the Standard method however you can also view budget results for the past five years, enter budgets for a forecast year and copy budget values to succeeding months at the same time increase or decrease those figures by a value or percentage.
• Advanced - Department Overview - With this method you can set up a budget for a department and analyse its costs or income by nominal category. Nominal categories are the accounting areas used to group your nominal accounts, such as Sales, Purchases, or Overheads. The value of all nominal accounts in a category are used to monitor what has actually happened against what was planned.
• Advanced - Department In-Depth - This method gives you the most detailed budget analysis available in Sage 50 Accounts, you can set up a budget for a department and analyse its cost or income by nominal account.

1. Settings > Company Preferences > Budgeting.
2. Complete the Budgeting information as follows:

• From the Budgeting Method drop-down list, choose Standard or Advanced.

  Note: If you choose Standard, the following options are not available.

• From the Budgeting Type drop-down list, choose the budgeting type that you want to use.

• From the Chart of Accounts drop-down list, choose the chart of accounts that you want to be the default for budgeting reports. If you only want to see specific nominal codes when reporting on budgets, you should set up a specific chart of accounts. For further information about this, please refer to Ask Sage article 11311 - How to create or edit a chart of accounts layout.

  Tip: If required, when running reports, you can select a different chart of accounts.

3. To save your selections and close the Company Preferences window > OK.

It isn't always possible to change the budget type. If it is possible, your current budgets are transferred to the new method.

Use the following table to check if you can:

Current budget method	New budget method
	Standard	Advanced - Nominal Code only	Advanced - Department Overview	Advanced - Department In-Depth
Standard	N/A	Yes	No	No
Advanced - Nominal Code only	Yes	N/A	No	No
Advanced - Department Overview	No	No	N/A	No
Advanced - Department In-Depth	No	Yes	Yes	N/A

Note: Budget records can only be created when using the budgeting methods of Department Overview or Department In- Depth. You can create as many Budget records as required against each department, this allows analysis against more that one nominal category or nominal code for each department reference.

1. Company > Department.
2. Select the department that you want to add a budget to > Budgets.

3. From the Nominal Area, select the nominal category or nominal code for which you want to enter a budget value.

   Note: You can only select a nominal category if you are using the Department Overview budgeting method. If you are using the Department In-Depth budgeting method you must select a nominal code.

4. Complete the record as required. For further information about the options available, please refer to Budgets window.
5. To save the budget information, Save > Close.

You can use Copy Values to quickly increase or decrease the budget.

1. Company > Budgets > Reference > choose the budget record you want to amend.
2. In the Monthly Breakdown table, click the budget or forecast month you want to start the value from.
3. Enter the value you want to copy > Copy Values > if required, enter an adjustment value for the budget and select how you want it to be applied.

For example,

Incremental adjustment - This is a cumulative adjustment. Each month is calculated based on the previous month's value plus the adjustment.

If you enter a value of £10 in January and you choose a £5 adjustment, the result is:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
10.00	15.00	20.00	25.00	30.00	35.00	40.00	45.00	50.00	55.00	60.00	65.00

If you enter a value of £10 in January and you choose a 5% adjustment, the result is:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
10.00	10.50	11.03	11.58	12.16	12.76	13.40	14.07	14.77	15.51	16.29	17.10

Note: To enter a percentage adjustment you must enter the % sign in the Percentage or Value adjustment box, for example, 5%.

Uniform adjustment - The adjustment calculates using the starting month's value plus the adjustment.

If you enter a value of £10 in January and you choose a £5 adjustment, the result is:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
10.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00

If you enter a value of £10 in January and you choose a 5% adjustment, the result is:

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
10.00	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50	10.50

Note: To enter a percentage adjustment you must enter the % sign in the Percentage or Value adjustment box. For example, 5%.

The following reports are available to monitor the budget:

Department List	A list of the department reference and names.
Departmental Balance Sheet	The balance sheet for a department or range of departments.
Departmental Profit and Loss	The profit and loss for a department or range of departments.
Departmental Budget Report - In Depth	A variance report of actual values to budget values by department.
Departmental Budget Variance Report - Overview	A variance report of actual values to budget values by department.
VAT Report (Detailed)	A detailed VAT report listing the transactions that affect each box on the VAT Return, a separate listing for each department number.

You can also monitor budgets as follows:

Budget record	To view the actual values against the planned budget for the current year and to view historical budgets for up to five previous years.
Activity	To view the transactions that make up the actuals for a department. You can choose the data range you are interested in and print the results.
Department window	To view the revenue and expenses to date for a department.