Budgets

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• Importing your budget
• View and amend budget values
• Original and revised budgets
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Importing your budget

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You can import your budget from your accounting software at the same time as you import your actual data. For details of how to complete the import, please refer to our Import section.

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Note: The budget imported is the main or overall budget. If you're using Xero or Quickbooks online, you can also import tracking or class level budgets. For information about this, please refer to our separate Help Centre article.

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If you prefer, you can also edit or enter the budget directly into Spotlight.  For information about how to do this, please refer to the following section.
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View and amend budget values

Note: When you amend an imported budget in Spotlight, the new figure is considered to be a revised budget. For information about how this appears on reports, please refer to the next section.
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1. Open the Customise Data tab, then open the tab for the data you want to amend, for example Revenue.
2. In the data grid, scroll to the right to view the future months.  Cells that contain budgets appear in yellow.Note: A future month is any month beyond the current report date. If required, you can change this in the Customise Layout tab.
3. Enter or amend the required budget figures.
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Original and revised budgets

Occasionally, you may need to amend a budget you've imported into Spotlight, but still report on both budgets. To ensure you can do this, if you amend a budget figure that you've imported, Spotlight holds both values:
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• Original budget - This is the budget that you imported into Spotlight. Unless you make manual amendments to the budget values, your budget is the 'original' budget.
• Revised budget - This is the budget as it currently appears in Spotlight. This includes any manual amendments you made to the budget values.
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While the majority of reports and charts show the revised budget as this is the current one, the profit and loss report can show both budgets, depending on the columns you select.
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Actual vs Orig Budget

Budget type: Original
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A comparison of the actual figures for the year to date, against the original imported budget figures. If you've made manual amendments to the budgets, they are not included in this comparison.
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Comparisons

Budget type: Original
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A comparison of the actual figures for the month, two month period or quarter, against the original imported budget figures for the same period. If you've made manual amendments to the budgets, they are not included in this comparison.
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Forward Projection Full Year

Budget type: Revised
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Projected figures as at the end of the year, based on actual figures to the current month and the revised budget figures for the remaining months of the year. If you've made manual amendments to the budgets, they are included in this area.
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Projections Analysis

Budget type: Both
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The current projected figures for the end of the year, compared to the original projected figures.
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• <Year> Proj - The total forward projection for the full year, taking into account actuals to the current month and revised budget for the rest of the year.
• Orig Budget - The original imported budget for the full year.

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