How to Create a Budget

If you are using the budget feature of CDM+ Accounting for the first time, you will enter the budget using the Add Accounts button. If you already have at least one budget year in the system, you can use the Copy Year button. Following are instructions for both methods.

Option 1: Using the Add Accounts Button

1. On the Accounting menu, choose Ledger and under Ledger, choose Budget. Or on the Welcome to Accounting window, click the 3. Enter a budget button on the Getting Started tab or the Budget button on the Windows tab.
2. Click the small Add Accounts button at the top of the window. This opens a window showing the Income and Expense Accounts in your Chart of Accounts.
   

   

3. A dialog box appears that allows you select the year for the added accounts. Enter the New Year, for example, 2017.

   

   The Add Accounts function can also be used to ad more accounts to an existing budget. In that case you would select an Existing Year from the dropdown list. 

4. Press Return/Enter or click OK. CDM+ will create a blank budget window for the new year and open the Select Accounts window for you to choose the income and expense accounts to include in the Budget.
   

   

5. You may choose from a dropdown list at the bottom of the window to Show: Active Accounts Only, Inactive Accounts Only or both Active & Inactive Accounts. Below this dropdown list you can click a button to Show All accounts (within the selection from the dropdown list). Or click on Show Find Results, type a keyword in the Find: box and click Find. All accounts (within the selection from the dropdown list) containing that keyword will be displayed. Using the Find feature allows you to work with smaller groupings of accounts.

   

   Accounts do not have to be added to the budget all at once. You may always save your work and later return to Add Accounts to the now-existing budget year.

6. Now that you have the desired list of accounts to choose from, you need to select which accounts you want to appear as budget line items. You can do this in several ways:
   1. Click to highlight each line. Hold down the Control (Windows) or Command (Macintosh) key and click to select non-contiguous lines.
   2. Press Control-A (Windows) or Command-A (Macintosh) to select all accounts. If there are accounts you do not want to include in the budget, hold down the Control (Windows) or Command (Macintosh) key and click those line items.
   3. Click on the Account Browser tab at the top of the Select Accounts window. This will show the Income and Expense accounts in a tree-list format. The advantage to this is the ability to group the accounts by Type, Fund Balance, Category and/or Sub-Category. To sort the tree list, click the small Change button in the Browser Options section of the window. Select the first criteria by which you want to group accounts from the dropdown list. If you want to refine the grouping, press Tab and select another criteria and so on. You may choose to show the list in ascending or descending alphabetical order by clicking on the Asc. or Desc. radio button. Click OK to view your sortation in the window on the left.

   Clicking on a box next to a group heading will select all accounts within that group. If you wish to select accounts individually or deselect some of the accounts in the group, click on the triangular arrow (Mac) or plus sign (Windows) to display checkboxes for the sub-groups (if any) and individual income and expense accounts.

   For example, you could choose to group accounts by Fund Balance, then by Type (Income or Expense) then by Category. The resulting tree list would look like the illustration below.

   

   The accounts you select on the Account Browser tab of this window (by clicking on or off checkboxes) will automatically highlight on the Income/Expense Accounts tab.

   

   No matter which selection method you use, once you have the income and expense accounts selected that you want to appear on your budget, you can save them in a set which can be loaded the next time you enter a budget. Click the Save Set button at the bottom of the window, type a Set name and click OK. To load a saved set of accounts into a budget, click on the Load Set button.

7. Click OK. Accounts you just added will appear in blue on the budget. As you move through each account, the color will revert to yellow when selected, and white when not selected.
8. Enter the annual Amount for the first budget line and press the Tab key. The annual amount will be divided by 12 and entered into the 12 monthly breakdown fields. You may change these to different amounts as long as the Breakdown total equals the annual Amount. Refer to the documentation on the Budget Inspector for how to specify month breakdowns.
9. When you are finished entering amounts, press Return/Enter or click Save.

Options 2: Using the Copy Button

When the budget you wish to enter will have many of the same accounts and amounts as a previous budget, using the Copy Year function can be a real time-saver, eliminating the need to re-enter a significant amount of data.

1. On the Accounting menu, choose Ledger and under Ledger, choose Budget. Or on the Welcome to Accounting window, click the 3. Enter a budget button on the Getting Started tab or the Budget button on the Windows tab.
2. Select a budget Year from the drop down list.
3. Click the Copy Year button at the top of the window. Enter a new budget Year and press Return/Enter or click OK. CDM+ will create a new budget with the same line items and amounts as the budget year copied.
   

   

4. Highlight the annual Amount in the first line of the new budget and, if necessary, enter the new amount.
5. Press the Tab key, moving through the budget line items, making changes as necessary. To delete a budget line item entirely, click on the red X. Clicking on the pencil icon will open the Select Account window.
6. The annual amount will be divided by 12 and entered into the 12 monthly breakdown fields. You may change these to different amounts as long as the Breakdown total equals the annual Amount. Refer to the documentation on the Budget Inspector for how to specify month breakdowns.
7. Press Return/Enter or click Save.
8. If you want to add line items to the copied budget. Click on the Add Accounts button and select the accounts as described above.

Clicking on the Rename button at the top of the Budget window simply allows you to change the name of the budget year.

If you Rename the budget, the existing budget will no longer be displayed in the current year, and will have an effect on all reports involving the current budget such as the Ledger to Budget Report and the Monthly Comparison Report.

Click on the Delete Year button to delete a budget.

Other Budget Window Features

Sorting

You may change the sort order of the budget window. This is particularly helpful if you wish to enter you budget by category, or by fund balance account. Specify the sort order on the budget window by clicking Choose Sort.

Select the sort fields to use and specify the direction of each sort (ascending or descending). Click OK to set the sort fields or Cancel to exit. The sort field selection is specific to each CDM+ user and is recalled each time you use the Budget window.

When you click OK on the Budget Sort window, your budget will be immediately re-sorted according to your sort selection. As you add and delete accounts, this sort is maintained.

Filtering

At the top of the budget window, you can choose to limit the displayed accounts to Income Accounts, Expense Accounts or All Accounts. This option is specific to each CDM+ user and is recalled each time you use the Budget window.

The percentage displayed directly on the budget window (not the one displayed on the inspector) is calculated from the displayed budget items. Therefore, if you view income accounts only, the percentage displayed for a specific account is calculated against the total budget for income accounts only. Expense accounts work the same way. Consequently, the percentage is not very meaningful when using the All Accounts option.

Budget Inspector

Click the magnifying glass icon next to a budget line to inspect that budget item in the Budget Inspector.

The budget inspector displays the month breakdown amounts for the selected account, a graphical representation of that breakdown, and entered and modified information for the budget line. As you select different budget lines, the inspector will update to show information for the selected line.

If you adjust the breakdown for a specific month, the total on the budget window and the graph on the inspector will immediately update to show your changes. Listed next to each month is the percentage that month’s amount represents of the total budget amount. This also will update live as you change month amounts.

Print

Click Print to print the full budget for the selected year. If you have set the budget window to display a certain type of account or use a custom sort, keep in mind that all budget lines for the selected year will print, and the report will use its own sort. Filtering and sorting settings on the budget window apply to that window only.