Depending on a church's administrative needs, a budget sheet of all budgetable accounts may be exported from the Budgets view and used in a budget meeting. Values can then be added to the existing file or a new CSV can be created from scratch that can be imported into Ledger.
There are no restrictions on when or how often a budget can be imported. So users can edit and reimport changes to budgets as needed throughout the year.
Users typically use one or both of the approaches below when creating a budget for their church's income and expense accounts. Sample templates for both of these methods are available at the bottom of this article, though they are not required to use the budget import utility. Exported files from other financial software can be used directly with this utility.
- Entering the annual budgeted amount for each account, dividing it evenly over the twelve months of a fiscal year
- Entering monthly budgeted amounts for each account
The budget importer is capable of importing both annual and monthly amounts, regardless of the file or template used. It is important to note that the importer preferences monthly amounts over annual amounts. Meaning if the importer sees both monthly and an annual amount for an account the monthly amount(s) will be imported. To use an annual amount for an account (when other accounts are using monthly amounts), enter zeroes for the monthly amount and type the annual amount in the total column. This will force the importer to use the annual budget amount.
To import budgets from a previously exported CSV file,
1. Go into Ledger from the Navigation bar. If your site has multiple books, you'll want to make sure you have the correct book selected in the upper right corner.
2. Click the Budgets tab to view all of your current budgets.
3. Click the "Change" link to change your budget fiscal year, if needed.
4. To the right of the page, click "Import" and choose the CSV file you want to import.
5. In the window that appears, the columns will auto-match by the name of the column header. If the importer does not find a match, the user will need to manually match any column not connected. You may also click the "x" to the right to unselect a chosen column. If importing only annual budgets (that will then be divided equally across twelve months), month columns do not need to be matched as long as a total column is selected. Any column in the file not matched in this step will be ignored by the importer.
- Identifier - A unique combination of characters denoting a single account; typically only used when a file is exported directly from the Budgets view in Ledger
- Account Name - The name of an account as it appears in the chart of accounts
- Account Number - The number of an account as it appears in the chart of accounts
- Total - The annual budgeted amount for an account; not required if only using monthly amounts
- Month Names - The monthly budgeted amount for an account; not required if only using annual amounts
6. Click "Account Matching" to match each row found in the file to an existing account in the system. Where possible, accounts will auto-match based on the Identifier, Account Name, or Account Number columns. Click the "x" to the right to unselect a chosen account. Account types, parent accounts, and accounts with no budgets edited need not be matched.
7. Click "Review" to double-check your budget amounts against those in the file. Monthly values that have updates will be shown in black while values with no changes will be shown in grey.
- If all looks accurate, click "Import" to continue the import process.
- If any of the amounts are incorrect, click the "x" at the top right, edit the file as needed, and start again.