Budget fiscal year selection

Hello, AppleLa2. 

In QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, you can create budgets based on your accounting data. Once your budgets are in QuickBooks, you can review and adjust everything. Then run financial reports to compare your actual sales and expenses with your budget.  

Step 1: Review your business' fiscal year

Make sure the beginning of your fiscal year is set in QuickBooks. You can create a budget any time, but it helps if you start at the beginning of the fiscal year.

1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online.
2. Go to Settings and select Account and settings.
3. Select the Advanced.
4. In the Accounting section, review the First month of the fiscal year field. To change the date, select Edit.

Step 2: Get your budget data

If you already have your budget data, you can skip this step. If you don't have any data yet, use your QuickBooks data to get started:

1. Go to the Reports.
2. Select and open the Profit and Loss Detail report.
3. From the Report Period ▼ dropdown, select a timeframe. If you want to use last year's data, select Last year.
4. Make sure the beginning and end of the year match your fiscal year. If you want to use data from your current fiscal year, select This Year-to-date.
5. Select Run report.

Use this info as a guide to create your budget.

Step 3: Download a budget template

Download a budget .csv template from QuickBooks. Use it to create your budget so all of your data is compatible. You can have up to five budget templates:

1. Go to Settings and select Budgeting.
2. Select Import budget.
3. Select the Sample.csv link to download the template. Save it somewhere you can easily find it, like your Downloads folder.

Step 4: Create your budget

Open the .csv budget template in Excel or Google Sheets. QuickBooks uses your chart of accounts and fiscal year months to format the template format.

Enter your budget for each account for each month. Important: Don't add more columns or rows. If you need more accounts to appear, add them to your chart of accounts before you download the template.

Step 5: Upload your template

When you're done, import your budget back into QuickBooks:

1. Go to Settings and select Budgeting.
2. Select Import budget.
3. Tap Browse and then select the template.

Now your budget is in QuickBooks. Do a quick review.

1. Give the budget a name.
2. Review the cells. Make sure the correct amounts are in each account. If you need to make edits, select a field and make changes.
3. When you're ready, select Save to save your budget.

I'm also adding these articles for reference in case you need tips and related articles in the future:

• Self Help
• Confirm the first month of your fiscal year 

Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns. You can reach out to the Community at any time. Take care and have a fantastic day ahead!