It simplifies things down to show the end result of āhow much do I have availableā. If you want to see the details, expand the sections (eg. the + above column N) and youāll get budget and current numbers.
Thanks for your super quick response - I appreciate it! I think Iām missing something because I donāt see anything suggesting an expanded view or more. Granted I havenāt gone far at all in setting up the budget.
Oh, sorry, was thinking you were asking about Budget Status. Budget Plan is just about planning your budget, it doesnāt do anything with actuals (beyond pulling them in from the past if you choose that option). To compare your budget with your actuals, youād need to then use something like āMonthly Budgetā, āSavings Budgetā or āBudget Statusā.
Are any of those integrated with Budget Plan - meaning I can view the budgeted vs actual per month?
Iām familiar with Monthly Budget and I see Savings Budget, but I canāt find āBudget Statusā. Thanks
I found the Budget Status I think
Any budgeting tool should look to the Categories sheet for itās budget info, which is why part of the setup for Budget Plan includes copying a special formula to the Categories sheet. You can fine Budget Status here.
Love the tool that youāve created and have been working this past week to get it ready for 2023. I have a question that I searched for but canāt tell if itās been discussed already:
I do freelance work where the income in the year is variable (dependent on how many clients I can land in a month) and the payment arrives at the start and end of the work (typically 3 months apart). I can use Past-Category or Past-Category-AVG to generally plan the coming year based on when I landed clients the previous year. However, is there a way for me to change the budget during the year? For example, if in Feb 2023 I realize Iām going to land more clients than I had in Feb 2022, can I update the Budget Plan somehow to reflect that the payments that come in May 2023 will be higher?
I canāt think of a simple way of doing this without creating something incredibly complex, like multiple rows, one for each month of 2023ā¦
If you use one of the āpastā frequencies, you could always add a multiplier on it to increase the numbers. For example, if you start out just using āPast-Categoryā and then realize youāre income is going to be higher than it was last year, try to estimate by how much it will be higher. If it will be 10% higher, add a 1.1 multiplier. If 25% higher, add a 1.25 multiplier.
You could also use multiple rows with start and end dates and each could have whatever frequency and multiplier makes the most sense.
@faisal Iād recommend looking into using the ExternalSource option. I am personally using this for items that fluctuate from month to month throughout the year (Electric and Gas for home). This allows you to create your budget category different from one month to the other as different parts of the year one will be higher than the other, etc.
This would allow you to adjust as well when needed pretty easily. There are some items above from myself and another who used the ExternalSource but I know @jpfieber did mention he was going to try to create some examples after the holidays of this feature. Itās a thought that may help you with what you are looking to do.
Any idea what I could have done wrong that the numbers stay 0.00 when selecting past-category?
Make sure you have a category chosen, and that you have transactions in that category from a year ago.
I selected a category that has transactions and still doesnāt show up amount on budget sheet.
If you expand the + above column AE, do you see a letter in AJ1? Thats where Budget Plan looks to see what column your categories are in on the Transactions sheet. If that looks correct, Iād go to your Transactions sheet and use the Filter tool to filter down one of the months from last year where youāre expecting to get numbers from to ensure there are actually transactions during that period for that category. Itās happened before where someone thought they had transactions, but then realized they were categorized differently than they thought, or didnāt realize the transactions didnāt start until a later date.
Sorry, but Iām not sure I understand what you mean with the below. Can you explain a little more.
āIf you expand the + above column AE, do you see a letter in AJ1? ā
In the Budget Plan sheet, if you look at the column headers, scroll over until you see a column labeled āAEā. Above the letters āAEā you should see a ā+ā symbol. If you click on it, it should expand and show you a bunch of hidden columns, one of which is āAJā. In the first row of column AJ should be a letter (in my case it says āDā). Does yours show you a letter, and then to the right of it, it should show something like 'Transactions'!$D$2:$D
?
Yes. It does show by me. Thanks for explaining that. I confirmed to have transactions of the category and it still doesnāt bring any numbers to the budget plan.
I appreciate your help with this.
If you want to share your sheet with me (send a direct message) I can try to troubleshoot, otherwise, not sure what else to suggest looking at.
Iām trying to sort by importance, but every way I do it seems to break the other formulas. Any recommendations for how to sort without a result of #REF all over the sheet? Thanks in advance! This budget is a great help as I set up for 2023!
How can I message you directly?
Where you see my picture and name on the left side of this message, click on ājpfieberā and a window will open, click on āMessageā and it will open a window to compose a message directly to me instead of to this post.