The Historical Profit and Loss Statement, as well as the Historical Balance Sheet are located in the Historical sub menu on the left hand-side menu. Simply click on the desired form under "Historical" to access your historical statements. 


IMPORTANT DOCUMENTATION (INFORMATION) NEEDED FOR THE IMPORTATION OF HISTORICAL DATA:

  • Most recent monthly financial statements in Excel format (preferred as you will need exact and not rounded figures) or in PDF, including income statement and balance sheet.
  • Copies of all active debt contracts (in order to be able to find interest rates, duration of loans, etc.)
  • Depreciation rules for the categories of fixed assets used in the balance sheet.
  • Share capital details if you have the information.

HISTORICAL PROFIT AND LOSS


Your historical Profit and Loss statement is your past financial information concerning your company's revenues, expenses, earnings before taxes, net income, retained earnings, etc.

It is important to keep in mind when filling out your historical profit and loss statement that your Total Revenues - Total expenses - Income Taxes = Net Income. 


To ensure the continuity of your calculations in your FINANCIAL REPORTS, you must properly detail the balances entered into the rows of the historical profit and loss statement. For example:

  • Revenues;
  • Costs (Variable and Fixed);
  • Earnings Before Taxes (EBT);
  • Net Income;
  • Retained Earnings.

You can enter the correct amounts in your revenues, costs, etc. by clicking on the proper cell under the corresponding month. The entire column will be highlighted in green to represent which month you are currently working in. You can then click and enter the cell, then type the amount in set cell. 


PRO-TIP: To simplify the process of entering your historical data manually, you could simply enter the TOTALS for all your accounts for the past fiscal year in the LAST month of your fiscal year. 
For example, in revenue for December 2019, you can enter the total revenues for the past 12 months ($12,000), instead of entering each month individually($1,000).
This will save you some precious time.



REMEMBER to click on the SAVE Button located in the top left of your screen to save your current Profit and Loss Statement. If you leave the current page without saving, your progress will be lost.


In this example, an amount of $2,000.00 is being entered into commissions (under VARIABLE COSTS) for April 2020:

   

Months reported in budget shows which months of your Profit and Lost Statement are "active". The boxes that are checked green (found above each month of your balance sheet) are considered active. To make your month "inactive", simply click on the green box on top of the month to the left to deselect them. Last Month shows the current month that is being used in your historical Profit and Loss Statement.


NOTE. 
You can change the year of your historical balance sheet by clicking on the arrows (left or right) next to the current year used found in the top right corner. See picture below.





REMEMBER AGAIN to click on the SAVE Button located in the top left of your screen to save your current Profit and Loss Statement. If you leave the current page without saving, your progress will be lost.


HISTORICAL BALANCE SHEET


IMPORTANT When filling out your balance sheet, keep in mind that your validation (found at the bottom of your balance sheet) should be 0,meaning that your total assets must be equal to your total liabilities + share holder's equity. If they do not equal your balance sheet will not balance, and therefore you will find various errors and warnings.


REMEMBER to click on the SAVE Button located in the top left of your screen to save your current Historical Balance Sheet. If you leave the current page without saving, your progress will be lost.


PRO-TIP: To simplify the process of entering your historical data manually, you could simply enter the LAST Balance Sheet for the last month of your historical data. 
This will save you some precious time.


To ensure the continuity of your calculations in your FINANCIAL REPORTS, you must properly detail the balances entered into the rows of the historical balance sheet. For example:

  • Assets;
  • Investments;
  • Short term portion of LT debt & long-term debt (these two lines go together);
  • Share capital.

When filling out your balance sheet, there are 3 things to keep in mind:

  1. These lines have blue hyperlinks that these 4 forms (Capital Assets, Investments, Debts, and Share Capital). Follow this link to understand how to fill out these 4 forms:
    How to fill the 4 forms in the Historical Balance Sheet?

  2. The forms must be completed for the last month of the Historical Balance Sheet reported in your FINANCIAL REPORTS. In the following example, the last month reported is March 2020.

  3. When a form does not balance with the amount entered in the column, the cells are highlighted in RED. Again, it is important to note that this validation is done only in the last month of Historical Balance reported in your financial reports.

Months reported in budget operate the same way as in the Historical Profit and Loss Statement.
When you have entered all details of your balance sheet properly, the cell for that line turns white, which means that your form balances with the amount entered in the cell. You do not want to have any RED cells in your balance sheet.

NOTE You can change the year of your historical balance sheet by clicking on the arrows (left or right) next to the current year used found in the top right corner. Same as in the Profit and Loss Statement.


REMEMBER AGAIN to click on the SAVE Button located in the top left of your screen to save your current Balance Sheet. If you leave the current page without saving, your progress will be lost.


PRO-TIP: What happens if you encounter an error? It can happen that an error message appears while trying to fill out your Historical Data. Fix these possible errors by reading this article from our Knowledge Base (See Errors 1 and 2): 

Possible Errors in the HISTORICAL DATA Menu


YOU'RE NOT DONE! 

After manually entering your historical data (historical P&L, historical BS), it is IMPORTANT that you work on your Manual Variations.

The Manual Variations Menu deals with the movement of money in the future that is related to your past. For example, you need to "teach" the system (Budgeto) when you will receive or move money associated with your accounts. (Ex: Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, etc.)


For more information about the Manual Variations Menu, including examples and screenshots, be sure to read the following article from our Knowledge Base.



--------------------------------------WHAT'S NEXT---------------------------------- 


Now that you have finished entering your historical data with BUDGETO, it's time to fill out your budget. It's important to focus on your company's FUTURE and what's to come so you can be better prepared and have everything laid out for you. This is why at this stage we are asking you to fill up forms rather than extrapolate the past. We want you to think differently, we want you to plan for what you have never done.

That's why it is critical to have a solid understanding of your financial projections. Get started with these articles from our Knowledge Base:

- I'm new to Budgeto, where to start?

- How to enter sales

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Related Articles (Please refer to the links below)

- How to fill the 4 forms in the Historical Balance Sheet?

- How to use the Manual Variations menu

How to LINK QuickBooks Online (QBO) to Budgeto?

- Possible Errors in the Historical Data Menu