In Aplos, you can create and track your annual budget for your income and expense accounts, and create Budget to Actual financial reports. The most common form of budgeting is creating an organizational budget for each of your income and expense accounts.

If you have Advanced Budgeting as part of your subscription, you also have the ability to create other budget types, including an organizational budget by fund, a budget by tag, or a dimensional budget that uses a combination of accounts, funds, and tags.

Here is a breakdown of the different budget types:

• Budget By Fund: This is an organizational budget that gives you the ability to budget by each fund using the same income and expense accounts.
• Budget By Tag: This budget is for specific tag types. It will be broken out across the tags within the type you select, and it is independent of the organization’s budget.
• Dimensional Budget: A dimensional budget is an organizational budget that allows you to allocate your budget across a combination of accounts, funds, and tags to offer powerful insight into your budget across your entire organization.

Creating Your Budget

To create a new budget, go to the menu and select Fund Accounting > Accounts > Budgeting

Select Budget Year:

On this page, click the green plus (+) icon to create a new budget. Enter the budget year, or if it spans multiple years, enter the starting year. You can adjust the budget for multiple years after it has been created.

Select Budget Type

Organizational Budget

This is your organization-wide budget that utilizes the income and expense accounts. This type of budget is included in the Core Platform. If you use standard budgeting, your budget type will automatically be selected as an organizational budget and you will not see a dropdown menu.

If you have Advanced Budgeting, you can also break out this organizational budget across funds and tags.

Budget By Tag Layer

If you have Advanced Budgeting, you will also see your activated Tag Layers as available budget types in your dropdown menu to create a granular budget for a tag.

Once you have selected your year and budget type, select “Add” to create your budget.

Set Budgets For Income And Expenses:

After selecting a budget year and type, you’ll see a list of all income and expense accounts, which serve as your budget line items. Your progress will be saved automatically as you enter budget details. To clear a budget amount for a specific line, click the trashcan icon on the right. While it's not required to enter amounts for every account, all accounts are available for budgeting if needed.

Edit Monthly Budget Amounts:

Entering an amount for each account will automatically divide it evenly across 12 months. To customize the allocation by month, check the 'Show Monthly Breakdown' box at the top of the Budgeting page. This will display a column for each month, allowing you to adjust the split.

Creating Multi-Year Budgets

Your new budget will default to your fiscal year. If your program, fund, or project spans more than 12 months, you can extend the budget period up to three years.

For example, to create a 24-month budget for a program running from January 2019 to December 2020, start by entering the 2019 budget on the Budgeting screen. Check the 'Three-Year Budget' box at the top to add fields for 2020 and 2021. You can then enter budgeted amounts for each income and expense account by year.

Manage Your Budgets

The Budgeting screen displays all your created budgets, including the date range, budget type, and a summary of income, expenses, and net income.

Show Or Hide A Budget From Budget Reports:

On the main Budgeting screen, you can choose which budgets appear in the Reports section for use in Budget to Actual reports. To hide a budget from reports, simply uncheck the box in the 'Show in Reports' column.

Delete A Budget:

To delete a budget, click the red trash icon on the Budgeting screen and confirm your action. 

Note: Deletions are permanent.

Edit, Print, Or Export A Budget:

To update, export, or print a budget, go to the Budgeting screen and click on the desired budget row to open it. From there, you can review or make changes to the budget, which will be saved automatically. To export, click 'Export Budget' to download an Excel file, or select 'PDF Budget' to download a PDF copy.

Budget To Actual Financial Reports

On the Reports page, you can access the Budget to Actual and Comparative Budget to Actual reports. With Advanced Budgeting enabled, each tag will have its own budget report.

You can share budget reports via email or download them as Excel or PDF files. If you want to retain specific filters or layout settings, save the report, and you’ll find it in the Saved Reports section on the Reports page.

Budget To Actual Calculations:

When running a report, use the Report Layout menu to customize the information displayed.

Columns available to see on this report include:

• Actual: Reflects the actual income or expenses recorded in the software within the selected date range.
• Year to Date: Represents the projected amount to be used within the selected date range. For example, if you budgeted $100 per month and ran a report for 1/1/21–5/31/21 (5 months), the Year-to-Date budget would total $500.
• Difference: Calculated by subtracting the Year-to-Date budget from the overall budget.
• Budget Percentage: The percentage of actual income and expenses divided by the Year-to-Date budget column.
• Annual Budget: The total budget amount set in the budget module.
• Last Year's Actuals: the income and expense recorded for the previous fiscal year.
• Annual Budget $: Variance of actuals against annual budget by dollar amount.
• Annual Budget %: Variance of actuals against annual budget by percentage.

Reviewing Multi-Year Budget To Actual Reports:

To run a report showing budgets and actuals across multiple budget years, first enable the 'Three-Year Budget' option and set the budget amounts. Next, go to the Reports section, select the Budget to Actual report, and set the date range to 'Custom.' Enter the desired start and end dates, click 'Apply,' and the report will refresh. The data will now display actual and budget totals for multiple fiscal years in a single report.