Depreciation and budgets
Plan a budget and compare it with actual results
Create a budget for a fiscal year, spread it by account and month, take it through submission, approval and activation, and track budget against actual as the year goes on.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
A budget sets the revenue you expect and the expenses you allow for a period. In Rocket ERP you build it per account and month, have it approved, and then compare it with what was actually posted.
Before you start
The fiscal year must exist.
Creating, approving and activating budgets are separate permissions, so the person who prepares a budget and the person who approves it can be different.
Create the budget
Open Reports & Analytics › View Budgets and select New budget.
Enter the Name and, optionally, the Name (Arabic).
Choose the Type: Annual, Quarterly, Monthly or Project.
Choose the Fiscal year and, optionally, a Branch.
Set the Start date and End date. The end date must be after the start date.
Optional: add a Description and Description (Arabic).
Select Save. The budget is created as Draft and receives a Code automatically.
Allocate the amounts
Open the actions menu of the budget and choose Line allocations.
Select Add line for each account you want to budget.
Choose the Account. Only revenue and expense posting accounts are offered.
Optional: choose a department in Department ID and add Notes.
Under Monthly breakdown, enter the amount for each month. Annual (auto) adds them up.
Select Save. A budget needs at least one line.
Take it through approval
The actions menu shows the next step for the current status. Each step asks you to confirm.
Status | Next action | Who |
|---|---|---|
Draft | Submit | The preparer, when the figures are ready. |
Submitted | Approve | A user with the approval permission. |
Approved | Activate | Makes the budget the one in force. |
Active | None | The budget is final. |
You can Edit the header and the Line allocations while the budget is Draft or Submitted. Once approved, the figures are locked.
Compare budget with actual
In the actions menu, choose Budget vs actual.
Optional: change As of date. Empty means today.
Read the summary: YTD budget, Actual and Variance, and a line showing how many days of the budget have elapsed.
For each account the table shows Annual budget, YTD budget, Actual, Variance and the variance in percent:
YTD budget is the annual amount spread evenly over the days of the budget, up to the as-of date.
Actual is the amount posted to the account from the start date to the as-of date. Revenue counts credits minus debits; expenses count debits minus credits.
A green variance is favourable (revenue above budget, or expenses below it). A red variance needs attention.
Find a budget
Filter the list by status, type, fiscal year, branch, Created by, Approved by or the start-date range (Start from, Start to), or search by name or code.