How to choose which Budget Entry method to use
In ParishSOFT Accounting, you may add three years worth of Budgets: Current Year Budget, Next Year Budget, and Next Year + 1 Budget. Note: as with reports, Current Year refers to your Current Accounting Period Year. Your Current Accounting Period is displayed in the upper right corner of your screen. When you later close the year, the Current Year Budget automatically becomes the Prior Year Budget, the Next Year Budget becomes the Current Year Budget, etc.
Two Budget Entry Methods
There are two possible entry Methods for adding the Budget: Screen Budget Entry or Export/Import Budget Entry. The pros and cons of using each method are listed below. Once you decide on which method you would like to use, please click on the link to your chosen method to learn how to proceed.
Screen Entry
- May feel you have more control over the entry
- Can limit your view to see only what you want to see
- Can auto-fill a set amount across all months
- Can pick and choose which fields to edit
- Might be more time consuming than export/import (see last "pro" under the Export/Import Entry option)
- Possibly get logged out after 20 mins of no entries/must remember to click submit every so often
- Can be a faster method of entry, especially if already familiar with Excel
- If you are familiar with Excel you may use its full list of shortcuts for copying and pasting (saves time when doing row by row)
- Can save the Excel files (budgets) for years
- May export by category such as department and have each department head update their own budget accounts
- Possibly lose data already entered within the budget when importing a budget spreadsheet (replaces what is in PSA with what is in the import file)
- Must be careful to export/import the exact same year; whichever year you choose to export is the year that will be populated with the budget numbers upon import. If you export from the current year option but populate your spreadsheet with next year's budget, when you import it will populate your current year budget with next year's values.
- If you don't know excel very well, data entry may be cumbersome
Related Articles
Budget: About Budget Entry (FAQ)
Budget Entry: (Part I) Enter, Export & Import (Videos)
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