Budget File Maintenance Questions & Answers
Q - My accounting year is May 1 thru April 30. We haven't yet closed the year just ended on 4/30/17, so there are dollar amounts in most accounts.
A - You may run Export Processor to retrieve year 2017 account balances as a template and modify from there as the new year (2018) budget.
Q - Is there an easy way for the system to go through all the accounts and create a blank budget file entry for each account?
A - Yes, same as the previous question. You should create two budget spreadsheets (a Balance sheet and a Profit and Loss sheet). Please see samples below:
Balance Sheet Budget
Profit And Loss Budget
Q - I understand that each period must be filled in as a plus or minus entry. Is there any automatic way to do that from the account totals at fiscal year-end?
A - There is no automatic way, but the concept is very simple --- the debit balance present by “Plus,” and the credit balance present by “Minus.” Please see previous example.
Q - I don't understand the structure of the file with the revisions. Is there a record per account / revision?
A - Generally speaking, there is a record per account/year/revision. You are almost correct. You just need to know that the budget for different years are different records.
Q - For example, if we have only 10 accounts, and I get started with the original version, I assume there would be 10 records in the budget file.
A - Yes, that is correct. This should be budget revision # 1.
Q - Now, I want to revise the records for revision # 1. Will there be 20 records?
A - You may have two ways to do a revision. (1). Revise under revision # 1. That means you still keep 10 records. (2). Copy revision # 1 to revision number # 2, then revise from revision # 2. Then you will be have 20 records.
Q - What if I wanted to revise only 1 of the original 10 records. Will there be only 11 records on file, or will the original 10 records remain as they were entered, and another 10 records added with the one changed and the other 9 as they were originally?
A - The answer is the same as the previous one.
Q - Sometime in the past 20 years, someone put some data into the budget file. I want to erase all that and start over again. How do I do that?
A - Yes, you may answer “Yes” to Purge Records at print “Edit List.”
Q - I see there's a way to list any accounts. That seems to be the only report in this budget system. Is there anything else available?
A - You may prepare a budget from a CSV file, then import it into the budget file. It will be very easy. Besides the option to “List” a report to a text file, you may export to a CSV file as a spreadsheet report. Export functions have two purposes: (1) to create an Excel format report, or (2) for revising purposes – you may export revision # 1 to a CSV file. Then you can work on the CSV file to make revisions. After you're finished, you can import the file back as revision # 2. Later, the user may decide to compare your financial statement with budget revision # 1 or # 2.
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