Re-profiling a Budget Spend/Income

Budgeting in ExpensePlus

When you set up your categories in ExpensePlus you can specify an annual budget amount as well as customise how this should be profiled/apportioned throughout the year.

Typically churches and charities have 12 months in their financial year. Most budgets are profiled in a linear way (1/12 of the total budget each month).

But in ExpensePlus you can profile this however you wish, and even re-profile/re-apportion the total budget during the financial year.

For example, you may profile event income as having an expected budget of £12k as linear, but if in month 1 you get 6k, you may wish to go back and reprofile (unless you believe and want the forecasted total to be much higher than the annual budget). 

On the expenditure front, you may pay some larger items, such as your insurance premium, or your examination fee, on an annual basis. If you know it is due every year in March or May, you can tell ExpensePlus that this.

When and how to re-profile a budget

For example, in the event income scenario above you're expecting £12k total, but £6k arrived in month 1. If you believed you were still on target to hit £12k over the whole year, you'd re-profile the budget as £6k in month 1 with the remaining £6k split as necessary. This would make the forecast in ExpensePlus go back to saying you were on budget at £12k for the year.
If you actually thought you will probably get in £24k this year (even though you've only budgeted £12k), you'd reprofile the budget as £3k in month 1 with the remaining £9k split over the subsequent 11 months. In this example, the profile will match the original budget, and the fact that you've exceeded your month 1 forecast by 100%, will carry through to a £24k forecast by year-end. 

You can continue to re-profile other months as well, throughout the year, based on the information available, WITHOUT changing the signed off-budget amount for each category.

Budget profiles are adjusted in the Income & Expenditure Category Settings screen, by selecting the Budget Details tab (screenshot below) and then adjusting the amounts for each category.

Linear and custom budgets

You can switch between Linear and Custom budgets by clicking on the 'Linear' or 'Custom' label in the second column. Where you are switching between these two profiles, ExpensePlus will offer you the option of how you want to switch:

  • whether to convert the existing figures, or
  • whether to move the total to a single month, or
  • start from scratch.

You can then edit budget figures as needed:

  • enter annual totals for linear budgets, and ExpensePlus will automatically calculate the monthly allocation, or
  • enter monthly figures for custom budgets, and ExpensePlus will automatically calculate the annual total.
Did this answer your question? Thanks for the feedback There was a problem submitting your feedback. Please try again later.

Still need help? Send us a message Send us a message