Budgets and forecasts play a crucial role in helping support the planning process within an organization and subsequently tracking the execution of that plan in the form of an actual vs. budget or actual vs. forecast.
The budget or forecast added to Payhawk is intended to be on a profit-and-loss basis rather than cash flow. You can also continue to add additional forecasts as you go through the fiscal year - for example, end of Q1, Q2 and Q3 re-forecasts.
Adding budgets to Payhawk
To create your budget:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Budgets.
Click on the New button and select New fiscal year from the drop-down menu.
In the dialog that opens, select the expense fields (budget dimensions) that will apply to your budget.
Under Select a fiscal year, choose the month and year for your budget to be calculated.
Click on the link with the template file to download it.
Go to the Downloads folder of your device, open the file, and fill in the required expense data.
Go back to the portal and under Upload file, upload the template file with your budget.
Click on Submit.
Editing and deleting budgets
Currently, you can edit and delete only forecasts in Payhawk.
Adding forecasts to Payhawk
To create your forecast:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Budgets.
Click on the New drop-down button and select New forecast.
In the dialog that opens, select the budget dimensions and enter a name for your forecast.
Download the template file, fill in the required data, and upload it back to the system.
Click on Submit.
Renaming forecasts
You can rename your forecast in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Budgets.
From the budget drop-down menu, select Manage forecasts.
In the dialog that opens, hover over the desired forecast, click on its three-dot menu, and select Rename.
On the next screen, update the name of the forecast and click on Save. Alternatively, discard your changes by clicking on Cancel.
Deleting forecasts
You can delete your forecast in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Budgets.
From the budget drop-down menu, select Manage forecasts.
In the dialog that opens, hover over the desired forecast, click on its three-dot menu, and select Delete.
On the next screen, click on Delete to confirm your choice.
The template file
The template file for importing your budget comprises an individual set of sheets that depends on the dimensions you've selected.
However, the common information you need to provide includes:
Budget name
Budget hierarchy (if any)
Budget owners
Currency
Period
Each field you need to populate with data contains instructions on what the allowed values are and what their expected format is.