Building your budget

Income and expenses

Income

Use the Income tab to enter your organization’s income items. An explanation of each column is below.

Include in Budget?—When the Additional Features are enabled, this field is checked by default. If you uncheck this field, the row will gray out and the line item amount will not be included in the budget tab totals or the “Total Income” total on this page.
Non-Cash?—When the Additional Features are enabled, this field is unchecked by default. When checked, this denotes that the income item does not correspond to cash received. For example, this could be the case with an unconditional multi-year grant where the entire grant award must be recognized as revenue in the year awarded, even though the cash will be received in future years. Any line item with this field checked will have the amount subtracted from the “Adjustments to Cash” line on the Monthly Budget tab.
Month—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select which month the income item will be recorded in. If you select “Annual,” the amount will be divided by 12 and 1/12th of the income will be recorded in each month.
Account—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select the account this income item will be recorded in. The dropdown menu populates from the Income Accounts column in the Chart of Accounts tab.
Class—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select the class this income item will be recorded in. The dropdown menu populates from the Class column in the Chart of Accounts.
Income Description—This field is not required. Enter in a description of your income item here.
Amount—This field is required. Enter the amount of your income item here. This must be a number.
Notes—This field is not required. Enter any additional notes about the income item here.

Note: The following fields are required for each line item in order for the template to work correctly: Month, Account, Class, and Amount.

Expenses

Similarly, use the Expenses tab to enter all non-payroll expenses.

Note: NP Budgeting classifies payroll expenses as wages, employer payroll taxes, and employer-paid benefits.

An explanation of each column on the Expenses tab is below.

Include in Budget?—When the Additional Features are enabled, this field is checked by default. If you uncheck this field, the row will gray out and the line item amount will not be included in the budget tab totals or the “Total Expenses” total on this page.
Non-Cash?—When the Additional Features are enabled, this field is unchecked by default. When checked, this denotes that the expense item does not correspond to cash spent. For example, this could be the case with depreciation expense (which never affects cash), or prepaid expenses (which were purchased in an earlier period). Any line item with this field checked will have the amount added to the “Adjustments to Cash” line on the Monthly Budget tab.
Month—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select which month the expense item will be recorded in. If you select “Annual,” the amount will be divided by 12 and 1/12th of the expense will be recorded in each month.
Account—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select the account this expense item will be recorded in. The dropdown menu populates from the Expense Accounts column in the Chart of Accounts tab.
Class—This field is required. Use the dropdown menu to select the class this expense item will be recorded in. The dropdown menu populates from the Class column in the Chart of Accounts.
Expense Description—This field is not required. Enter in a description of your expense item here.
Amount—This field is required. Enter the amount of your expense item here. This must be a number.
Notes—This field is not required. Enter any additional notes about the expense item here.

Note: The following fields are required for each line item in order for the template to work correctly: Month, Account, Class, and Amount.

Payroll expenses

Payroll expenses are separated into their own tab. An explanation of each column on the Payroll Expenses tab is below.

Include in Budget?—When the Additional Features are enabled, this field is checked by default. If you uncheck this field, the row will gray out and the line item amount will not be included in the budget tab totals or the “Total Position Cost” total on this page.
Starting Month—If this field is left blank, the template will assume that the starting month is the first month of the fiscal year.
Ending Month (If Applicable)—This field is not required. If an ending month is set, the salary will be pro-rated for only the number of months the employee will work during the fiscal year.
Employee Name/Job Title—This field is not required. Enter the employee’s name and/or job title.
Gross Annual Full-Time Salary—This field is required. This must be a number.
FTE (Full-Time Equivalent)—This field is required. This should be a number between 0 and 1. For example, a full-time employee would be 1 FTE. A half-time employee would be 0.5 FTE.
Annual Benefits (Employer Paid)—This field is not required. Enter the annual total of any employer-paid benefits for this employee, which often inclue items like health insurance premiums, retirement matching, life insurance, etc.
Total Position Cost—This total populates automatically based on the numbers entered to the left. It includes the salary, pro-rated for start/end date and/or FTE as applicable; the employer-paid benefits number; and the employer payroll taxes based on the percentage entered in Budget Setup in the Add-on sidebar.
Note: The Annual Benefits number is not affected by the Start/End Date or FTE Equivalent. The number you enter in that field will be the number used in the calculation.
Class Totals—This field populates automatically based on the numbers entered to the right.
Class List—This list will be unique to each organization. The classes on the Classes column of the Chart of Accounts tab will populate here. Assign each employee a percentage of time worked on each class. Each employee’s total must be 100% for the template to work correctly.

Note: If you have updated the class list in the Chart of Accounts and do not see those updates reflected in the Payroll Expenses tab, click the “Update Budget” button in the Add-on sidebar.

Updating the budget

After entering your income, expenses, and payroll expenses, click the “Update Budget” button in the Add-on sidebar. The first time you click the button, the four budget view sheets will generate.

Any time you (or anyone else) changes anything in the Income, Expenses, or Payroll Expenses tabs, you must click the “Update Budget” again in order for those changes to be incorporated in the budget sheets.

The budget tabs are locked to prevent editing, because when the “Update Budget” button is clicked, each budget tab regenerates. This means any changes made directly on a budget tab would disappear when the budget was updated.