What it does
A budget covers twelve months. For each income and cost category you set a figure per month: the income you expect or the spending you allow. Budget vs actual compares it with what really happened — the same figures as Profit & loss, from explained bank lines, invoice payments and logged expenses — for a month, the year so far, or the whole year.
When a cost category goes over its budget for the month, the bell tells you once (you can switch these Alerts off per budget).
Where to find it
- Navigation: Finance → Budgets (owners only, Pro plan)
- URL:
/dashboard/budgets; one budget —/dashboard/budgets/<budget>
Step by step
Create a budget
- Click New budget.
- Give it a Name and choose the First month — it defaults to the start of your financial year.
- Choose where to Start from:
- Last year's actual figures, month by month — the honest start for a seasonal round: December isn't June.
- My recurring costs (from Expenses) — your insurance, van lease and phone, month by month.
- A blank budget.
- Click Create budget. You land on Edit figures to adjust it.
Set the figures
On Edit figures, each row is a category and each column a month. Type positive amounts: income you expect, or spending you allow. The small number under each box is what actually happened that month so far. The ⇄ button copies the row's first figure across the whole year. Click Save budget.
See how you're doing
On Budget vs actual, choose Year to date, The whole year or a single month. The headline cards show Income, Costs and Profit against budget. Each category shows its budget, actual, a progress bar and the difference: Ahead by for income, £ left or Over by for costs, and Not budgeted when money was spent in a category you didn't plan for.
Alerts, and deleting
Alerts on / Alerts off at the top switches overspend notices for this budget. The bin deletes the budget — your actual income and costs aren't touched.
Tips and good to know
- Figures are compared net of VAT if you're VAT registered.
- A budget only compares Income, Cost of sales and Expenses categories — the ones profit is made of.
- Overspend alerts are checked once a day, from 6pm.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to try |
|---|---|
| Actuals look too low | Explain the account's unexplained lines — they aren't in any category yet. |
| "Last year's actual figures" gave an empty budget | There were no explained lines or payments in those months. Start blank or from recurring costs. |
| I didn't get an overspend alert | Check Alerts on, that the category has a budget for this month, and that the notification type isn't muted in Settings → Notifications. |