How to set a charity budget for the year
What you expect to spend and receive, line by line, and when each of it falls.
In The Charity Office: Money → Budget → Start a budget
Start the year
Press Start a budget. The dates fill themselves in from your financial year end, so if they look wrong it is the year end that is wrong - fix it under Settings → Charity details.
Turn on "This is the one we are working to". Your cashflow and your management accounts read whichever budget that is, and turning it on here puts your other budgets back. Only one is ever in use.
Adding the lines
On the budget itself, "What is in the budget" is where the lines live. Press Add a line for each one.
Say whether it is money in or money out, give it a name, and put in the figure for the whole year - not the monthly one. The spread does the dividing.
The heading is what makes it work
A spending line has to name one of your categories. An income line has to name one of the sorts of money. That is the only way a line ever gets compared against what really happened.
A line with neither shows a "no heading" pill on the cashflow and reads nought in every finished month, while the real money gets swept into "Other spending (not in the budget)". It is the single commonest reason a new budget looks wrong.
When it falls
The same every month divides the annual figure by twelve. Only in certain months divides it evenly between the months you tick - insurance in April is one month, a quarterly bill is four.
Where does this figure come from is worth a line. "Last year plus 3%, paid quarterly" is what a trustee reads when they ask why the number is what it is, and it saves next year's treasurer starting again.
Worth knowing. A first budget does not have to be right. Last year's figures plus a guess is enough to make the cashflow useful, and you can change any line at any time.
More guides
See your own year, in full, in an afternoon
Start free, put in what is in the bank and this year's figures, and look at the forecast before you decide anything.