QuickBooks 2021 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Preparing a Budget

IN THIS CHAPTER

Employing common budgeting tactics

Being practical about budgeting

Working with the Set Up Budgets window

Using a budget to manage your business

Budgets provide business owners and managers powerful tools for better managing a firm’s operation. A budget can give the business owner or manager a way to more easily and more quantifiably manage the people working for the business. A budget can often identify problems or opportunities early. Finally, a budget truly gives the owner or manager a way to plan the year’s operation, think about what’s most important, and quantify what the firm should achieve over the year.

For these reasons, this chapter discusses some practical, common-sense approaches to budgeting within QuickBooks. I think you’ll be surprised by how straightforward this process is.

Reviewing Common Budgeting Tactics

Before I get into a detailed discussion of how you create a budget and use that budget within QuickBooks, I want to briefly identify and describe three very useful and common budgeting tactics: top-line budgeting, ...