Budgets

A budget is a tool to plan upcoming income and expenses.

Synonyms include financial estimates, financial planning, and fiscal estimation.

For example:

• My rental owners are appreciative of the fiscal estimates I prepared for our meetings.
• I have a better idea of whether my properties are ahead or behind in terms of Profits/Losses.
• My budget vs actuals report is a good comparison of how my operations are going.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

1. Add a budget
2. Add an opening balance for a budget
3. Edit a budget
4. Delete a budget

1. Add a budget

1. Navigate to Accounting > Budgets. 

2. A list of previously entered budgets, if available, is displayed. Click Add budget.

3. Complete the form.

   

4. Click Enter budget amounts.

5. You can select the accounts and amounts to enter for each month. Click the Income tab to enter incomes and the Expenses tab to enter expenses.

   You can enter a total amount for the year and Buildium will split among the months evenly or you can enter an amount for each month.

   

2. Add an opening balance for a budget

Use this information if you're entering an opening balance in the middle of the year and you'd like to see budget totals from earlier in the year.

For example, you're starting to use Buildium's accounting in March. You plan to use the budget feature and you'd like to see income and expenses from January and February of that year.

To set up these opening balances:

1. Gather up your actual totals from January and February.

   For example, January had actual amounts of $10,000 in association fee income and $2,500 in repairs expenses.

2. Create a general journal entry for the last date of the month. see "General journal entries"

   For example, to enter January's totals, the date of the transaction would be January 31.

3. Complete the rest of the general journal entry with the appropriate debits and credits. If you need to balance the transaction, use Opening Balance Equity as the offsetting account.

   For example, this journal entry will credit $10,000 in association fee income, debit $2,500 in repairs expenses. Because a journal entry must balance, add a $7,500 debit to opening balance equity as well.

4. Once you've added in January and February's balances, enter your opening bank balances to begin for March. see "Entering beginning bank account/cash balances"

3. Edit a budget

1. Navigate to Accounting > Budgets
   
   
2. A list of previously entered budgets, if available, is displayed.

3. Click the name of the budget you want to edit.

4. Click .

5. Make your changes in the form.

   Remember that you can toggle the view to see your budget by year or by month.

   

6. Click Save.

4. Delete a budget

1. Navigate to Accounting > Budgets.
   
   
2. A list of previously entered budgets, if available, is displayed.

3. Click on the name of the budget, and then click Delete.

4. A confirmation pop-up window appears, prompting you to confirm the deletion. Click Delete budget to delete the budget and return to the Budgets page.