Budgets

Budgets plan revenue and spending by account, then compare to actuals for variance tracking. Enter monthly amounts manually or with AI Forecast — essential for close and client advisory. Budgets require the CFO Advisory Suite add-on (unlocked during your trial). Open them from Budgets.

Key capabilities

• Create budgets with a name, fiscal year, start/end dates, and a monthly / quarterly / annual period type
• Per-account line items with an editable amount for each month in the period
• Budget vs Actual report — budgeted, actual, $ variance, and % variance by account, with totals and an adjustable period
• AI Forecast to auto-populate revenue and expense lines from projected activity, with a preview before anything is overwritten
• Model Scenario to turn a budget into a Budget Projection scenario (and jump back to the projection)
• Lifecycle states — Draft, Active, Closed — with one-click activate
• Duplicate a budget to start a new draft from an existing plan
• Search and status filter pills (All, Draft, Active, Closed) across budgets, plus a Budget Projection shortcut
• Budgets created from a projection are badged Generated from Projection and link back to their scenario
• Total budgeted revenue + expenses shown per budget in the list

How it works

You set planned amounts per account per month; DayZero compares them against actuals from your ledgers to surface the variance for each account.

flowchart TD
  create["Create budget (period + dates)"] --> lines["Add line items per account"]
  lines --> fill{"Enter how?"}
  fill -->|"Manual"| manual["Type monthly amounts"]
  fill -->|"AI Forecast"| ai["Auto-fill from projection"]
  manual --> compare["Compare to actuals"]
  ai --> compare
  compare --> variance["Variance ($ and %) by account"]

How to use it

1. Open Budgets and click New Budget. Enter a name, start and end dates, and a period type — the fiscal year is taken from the start date. New budgets start as drafts.
2. Open the budget and click Add Line to pick an account and enter an amount for each month in the period.
3. Click AI Forecast to auto-populate revenue and expense lines from projected activity. Review how many lines will be overwritten or added, confirm with Apply forecast, then adjust any cells.
4. Click vs Actual to see budgeted vs. actual with $ and % variance per account and a totals row; change the Period at the top to look at a different window.
5. Use Activate (in the budget list) to promote a draft to active (the previously active budget becomes Closed), Duplicate to copy it as a new draft named " (Copy)", or Delete to remove a draft.
6. Click Model Scenario to generate a Budget Projection scenario from the budget for what-if planning.

Pro tips

• Start from last year as a baseline by duplicating a prior budget, then adjust the dates and amounts — faster than building from zero.
• Use AI Forecast for a first draft while the budget is still a draft, then refine the accounts you have strong opinions about — it only fills months that fall inside the budget period.
• Review vs Actual monthly with clients to catch overspending before it compounds; variance is budgeted minus actual, so positive means actual is below plan (good for expenses, a shortfall for revenue).
• Finish editing before you Activate: lines can only be changed while a budget is a draft. Only one budget is active at a time, and activating another closes the previous one.
• For deeper what-if modeling (growth, hiring, scenarios), push a budget into Budget Projection with Model Scenario rather than editing cells by hand.

In-depth guide

Budget structure and lifecycle

A budget has a name, fiscal year, start/end dates, and period type, plus a status that controls how it's used.

Two views render the budget:

• Detail view — one row per account, with a Total column and a column for each month between the start and end dates.
• List view — each budget's status, period type, total budgeted (revenue + expenses), and date range.

Line items and amounts

• Structure — each line item ties an account to a set of monthly amounts.
• Totals — a line's total is the sum of its monthly amounts, and the budget total is the sum across lines.
• Editable — lines can be added, edited, or deleted only while the budget is a draft (you are asked to confirm deletes).

Budget vs Actual

The vs-Actual report compares your plan to ledger actuals and lists each account's budgeted amount, actual amount, variance, and variance percentage, with a totals row. It opens on the budget's own period, capped at today, and you can change the Period with the date range and preset pills.

AI forecast and scenario modeling

• AI Forecast — generates forecasted revenue and expense lines and writes the projected amounts into the budget's months. Only periods inside the budget window are applied; matching existing lines are overwritten for the forecast months and new accounts are added as new lines. A confirmation shows the counts first.
• Model Scenario — creates a Budget Projection scenario from the budget and opens the projection workspace.
• Generated from Projection — budgets that originated from a projection display this badge with a link back to the source scenario.