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The Financials window

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The Budget Report

A good way to check how your company is performing is to run the Budget Report. This shows your nominal budget values against the actual values, and the difference, or variance, between the two. In addition, each category heading is also calculated as a percentage of the total sales figure, as a ratio.

Values are grouped into sales, purchases, direct expenses and overhead account codes based on your Chart of Accounts, for both the month you specify, and the year-to-date. This means you can quickly see which areas are doing well against company budgets and which areas aren't.

To run the Budget Report

1. Company > Links pane > Financials > Variances.

   Note: The Variances button only appears on the Financials window toolbar if you have set your Budgeting preferences to Standard on the Budgeting tab in Settings > Company Preferences.

2. Select the required output as follows:

   Printer	Sends the report to your printer.
   Preview	Use this to view the report on-screen. Tip: From the report preview you can then run the report to printer, file or email.
   File	Saves the report to file, for example, to print at a later date.
   Email	Sends the report by email.

3. To generate the report, click Run > enter any required criteria > OK.

   View criteria

   Period	From the drop-down lists, choose the accounting range you want.
   Chart of Accounts	From the drop-down list, choose the Chart of Accounts you want to use for your report. A default Chart of Accounts is available or you can create as many of your own as you need. Find out more

4. If there are any errors in your Chart of Accounts a warning message appears > to continue and produce the report > OK.

Note: If your software detects errors in your Chart of Accounts, your financial reports may be inaccurate. You should check your Chart of Accounts and correct any errors as soon as possible.