Budgets

This guide covers budgeting in Controller. In Controller, you can create a budget for both the income statement and the balance sheet. Controller's budgeting is suitable for all company forms. Revenues are budgeted with a positive value and expenses with a negative value. The budget can be created at the account group level, account level, or cost center level. Budget creation is now possible with account numbers of any length.

CONTENTS

• Budget input
• Budget import/export
• Input for account group
• Input for cost center
• Allocation to cost centers
• Default header selection
• Budget printing

Budget input

The budget is a tool for estimating fiscal year revenues and expenses based on actual and budgeted values or imported accounting data. Budgeting begins with the Create New option. A name and time interval are given to the new budget. Budget input can start with a blank template or use existing figures. When choosing to use existing figures, the latest monthly values are selected for each budget month from the chosen data. If the base data or the created budget is longer than a year, the same values will apply to the months of different years. If you want to use actual figures from two different fiscal years as a base for the budget, it can be done by first creating the budget with actual figures, e.g., according to the 2024 actuals. Then you can choose Import Figures and set the time interval, e.g., 07/2023-12/2023, with the data source as the 2023 actuals. This way, the 2024 actuals are used from January to June, and the 2023 actuals from July to December. Note that budget input does not support decimals. Once a budget is created, its structure cannot be modified, meaning any changes to the chart of accounts for the budgeted accounts must be made before creating the budget. The budget can be deleted, copied, or set as the primary budget through the three dots. The primary budget appears first in the Report comparison series selection and at the top of the budget listing.

The budget can be in the state of Ready or In Progress. To edit the budget, it must be in the "In Progress" state. A budget in the Ready state cannot be edited. 

If a value is entered in the budget total column, it is evenly distributed across the budget months. The remainder is set to the first month of the budget.

It is possible for multiple users to input the budget simultaneously. After each value entry, all changed values are updated in the budget, so values entered by other users simultaneously will also be visible.

Keyboard shortcuts can be utilized in budget input. The following operations can be performed on selected cells:

Copy (Ctrl + c) -> Copies the values of the selected cells.

Paste (Ctrl + v) -> Pastes the copied values into the selected cell and onward to other cells based on the copy.

Cut (Ctrl + x) -> Removes the values of the selected cells and copies them to the clipboard.

Fill (Ctrl + k) -> Inputs the value of the selected cell (one cell) into the remaining cells of the row in the table. The command must be executed from the cell containing the value to be copied.

Delete -> Removes values from the selected cells.

All accounts to be budgeted must have the "Allow budgeting for account" option selected in the account settings of the account list.

Budget import/export

Budget values can be imported/exported to Excel. Values can be edited in Excel and imported back into Controller. The imported budget template will display information in columns: account, possible cost center headers, and months. Cost center headers must not be removed to ensure successful import. If you want to budget by cost centers, the desired cost center must be entered exactly under the correct cost center header. Accounts are matched by number and cost centers and headers by name. If you do not want to budget by cost centers, leave the row data in the cost center header columns empty. Budget data must be entered row-wise at the account level. Data entered at the account level will update to the account group level in Controller. NOTE! All accounts to be imported into the budget must have the "Allow budgeting for account" option selected in Netvisor; otherwise, the transfer will result in an error. If an error message occurs during the transfer stating that there are no cost centers/tracking centers and these are not used, the entire column can be removed before transferring back to Controller. If changes have been made to the targets, we recommend updating Controller manually before the transfer. 

The transfer starts from Controller by selecting Download Excel, which is found behind the three dots in the budget view. Make changes in Excel and then select Import Figures.

Input for account group

When inputting for an account group, the value is saved to the first account of the account group. Inputting for an account group overrides previous values under the account.

Input for cost center

The budget can also be input for a cost center. Inputting is done either by selecting the cost center 1) from the cost center filter or 2) through the account view by clicking the account or moving from the cell with the arrow button. In the account view, click 3) "Add cost center." The selected account in the account view can be changed from the menu at the top of the table. The selected account in the account view can be changed from the menu at the top of the table. Values can be input for a cost center combination by selecting the desired centers simultaneously, so the values go to all these cost centers. However, only 3 cost centers from different cost center headers can be included in the combination. When entering a cost center budget, remember that budgeted amounts also increase the total budget.

Allocation to cost centers

The unallocated row indicates the value entered for the account that has not been allocated to any cost center. If unallocated is >0, values entered for cost centers automatically reduce the unallocated value. Conversely, removing a value entered for a cost center transfers the value to unallocated, except if the unallocated row is empty, it is not updated automatically. If more is allocated than the account balance, the unallocated goes to zero, and the difference is added to the account value.

The unallocated value of the cost center header is the sum of all values that have not been assigned a cost center under that header. In the cost center hierarchy, values can be present at all levels. In this case, values from lower levels of the hierarchy are included with values at higher levels. 

Default header selection

Summary rows are added to the table for the default header cost centers, showing the sum of all cost center combinations containing that cost center. The default header selection is user-specific and does not affect saved values, so it can be changed as needed.

Keywords: budgeting, controller, income statement, balance sheet, account group level, account level, cost center, Excel, import, export, permissions, budget sharing, cost center hierarchy, budget status, keyboard shortcuts

Budget printing

In Controller, you can retrieve the budget and forecast prepared for your company from the Reports tab and print them either to Excel or PDF. First, go to the Reports tab in Controller and open the search criteria in edit mode from the arrow button on the right:

In this view, you can change the actuals to the desired budget or forecast in the Figures field:

Finally, you can download the selected report either to Excel or PDF from the three dots on the right:

By selecting the fiscal year's actuals in the Figures field and the budget or forecast in the Comparison Figures field, you can easily print, for example, an actual-budget comparison for the fiscal year.

Did you find it helpful? Yes No