In MarginEdge [ME], “Budgets” refer to a way you can track what you're spending in whatever categories you are interested in. They are designed to help you track spending both during a period and at the end of a period.
You can have as many budgets as you'd like, and they can be setup in a few different ways, but each category can only be used in one budget. You can choose to have a fixed dollar amount as a budget – which works like a declining budget - or you can set a variable percentage of either total sales or category sales (Food, Beer, Wine, Liquor, NA Bev, Retail, Other).
Each of your budgets remains constant from period to period until you decide to edit them.
For Multi-Unit Groups
When your units share a Company Concept with other units, you will be able to see all of the units' budgets side by side. You will also get a summary roll-up report of all units. (This is only available for those who have appropriate permissions in every unit.)
When you create a budget, it will be generated for all units in your company/concept. If you edit the categories, the change will flow to all units. However, editing a budget % or $ amount in one unit will not change the % or $ in other units. To change a target % in all units at once, you can either remove and recreate the budget, OR edit the budget in each unit individually.
Setting Up Budgets
From the main menu, go to Accounting > Budget Setup. From there, if you have Restaurant Admin or Accountant user access, you can Add or Edit a budget.
To add a new budget click “Add a new budget”. To edit an existing budget, click on a row in the table on the Budget Setup page (each budget appears as a row in the table shown.) That will take you to the Edit Budget page, and you can follow the instructions below.
Budget Name: enter a name (e.g., FOOD, or Beer, or BWL, or R&M, etc…)
Budget Types:
1 - “Fixed” - a fixed dollar amount. Once you select “Fixed”, you will be able to enter a dollar amount for your budget. For example, perhaps you are creating an R&M budget and want to set it to $500 per period. Simply enter "500" in the value field.
2 - “Percent of Sales” - a percentage of a category of sales – Food, Beer, Wine, Liquor, NA Bev, Retail and Other. With this option, you will select which sales category or categories you want to track against your expenses. Using “Percent of Sales” is commonly used for tracking Food cost or Beer cost, etc., so you are tracking food cost as a % of food sales, beer cost as a % of beer sales, etc.
- First, select one or more sales categories. For example, check the “Food” box if setting up your Food budget.
- Next, enter the % for the budget. For example, if you want to set up the Food budget at 25%, then enter 25 in the value field (no decimals needed – just enter the number “25”.)
- Finally, select the Expense Categories that are being tracked. (Tip: you can click on a column header to sort by Category or Category Type.) To select one, click anywhere on the row. Once a category is used once, it will appear 'greyed out' and not be selectable again.
3 - “Percent of Total Sales” - a percentage of total sales. With this option, you do NOT select which sales category or categories you will track expenses against. You will be tracking the expense category or categories against total gross sales.
Once you select "percent of total sales":
- First, enter the % target for the budget. For example, perhaps you are creating an Operating Supplies budget and want to set it to be 2% of Total Sales. (No decimals needed – just enter “2” in the value field.)
- Then, select the Expense Categories that are being tracked. (Tip: you can click on a column header to sort by Category or Category Type.) To select one, click anywhere on the row. Once a category is used once, it will appear 'greyed out' and not be selectable again.
Remember to click “Save” when done.
A few things to note:
- Budget reporting shows the costs of products within a category as defined when the invoice closed. If you change a product's category after the invoice closed, that change will only be reflected moving forward and will not move any costs on any closed invoices.
- If you are using our Closed Books feature, Budgets show expenses based on the invoice's posting date, not the original date.