This article will demonstrate how to upload a budget or forecast to Konsolidator when your fiscal year is not following the normal calendar but has a broken fiscal year for example April 2023 to March 2024.
As demonstrated in the article Creation of budget or forecast source - ÆNDRE LINK an additional source is now created named "Presentation." This source will be used for budget upload for 2023/2024.
Since the period is within two different calendar years, the preparation and upload will be divided into two tasks. The first task is to upload numbers for the period April 2023 to December 2023. The second task is for the upload from January 2024 to March 2024.
First task – Budget for the period April 2023 to December 2023
We set the period to April 2023 and the source to "Presentation." Click the menu button "Upload" on the left side of the screen and click the button "Download template."
The excel upload template is now downloaded. The only difference from the upload template used for uploading actuals is that the budget/forecast template contains twelve months of upload, and the upload for actuals only contains one month. Otherwise, from that, the required information is the same. The format is also the same: revenue and liabilities are presented with credit, and cost and assets are shown with debit. The uploaded numbers must always be pr. entity and in local currency and accumulating numbers. If the expected sales in April are 100 USD and the expected sales for May isolated is 500 USD, you must type -100 in April and -600 in May (100+500).
The upload template for budget/forecast contains the same sheets as in the upload template: one template sheet, one company sheet, and one dimensions sheet.
Just as when uploading actual numbers, Konsolidator uses the short name to separate the upload on the entity level. Therefore, uploading the budget/forecast for all entities in one upload template is possible.
For this example, we have prepared an upload template containing uploads for two entities.
US01 is in local currency USD, and CH01 is in local currency CHF. The reason why January, February, and March are greed out is that the fiscal year starts in April 2023, and therefore, there should not be any upload for the first three months in 2023.
Marked with yellow is the mandatory information. You must always type in a company's short name and account number. The account number can either be your local ERP account or your Konsolidator group account number.
After finalizing the upload template, you save it locally and upload it to Konsolidator by clicking the "Upload from file" button.
A new dialog box will open. You either select the file using the "+ Select" button or drag-drop the file you want to upload.
In the button, you select which chart of accounts you want to use for the upload. In this example, group accounts are used. After finalizing the information, click on "Upload from file."
Now the uploaded budget for April to December 2023 is visible in the upload overview one month at a time based on the selected period on the blue top bar.
As presented in the overview, the date for the upload and the person who has uploaded the numbers are stamped. Again, there are two checks performed in Konsolidator.
The first check, "Upload balance," checks if the uploaded budget/forecast in excel reconciles to zero.
The next check, "Balance after mapping," checks the upload balances within Konsolidator. In this example, we only made a budget on specific revenue accounts, and therefore this upload will never balance. If you want your upload to balance and the color to turn green, you can always reverse your upload against retained earnings in equity.
After the upload is in place, you need to consolidate the budget/forecast one month at a time. You start in April, go to the " Journals " menu, and click on "Calculate and post." After clicking on this button, all journals for April will be calculated.
After calculating journals, you click on the menu button "Consolidation." You find the relevant month and click on "Consolidate." Konsolidator now consolidates the budget for April, and there will automatically be a tick mark in the closed column and the period will appear closed on the blue top bar. Only an administrator can reopen the period.
Now the period is consolidated, and you switch to May on the blue top bar and perform the same steps for the period May 2023 to December 2023.
These tasks you must do for each period in the correct order for the first part of your fiscal year.
Second task – Budget for the period January 2024 to March 2024
Now it is time to upload the budget covering the three months in the calendar year 2024.
Again, we need to download the budget template – but this time for the calendar year 2024. We, therefore, select a month within 2024 when downloading the template.
We again fill in the template as before – but this time, we only fill in the accumulated numbers for January 2024 until March 2024. We do not fill in numbers for the remaining period (April 2024 to December 2024).
The format is also the same as before, where revenue and liabilities are presented with credit and cost and assets are presented with debit. The uploaded numbers must always be pr. entity and in local currency and accumulating numbers.
Hereafter you again need to finalize one month at a time. You start in January 2024, go to the " Journals " menu and click on "Calculate and post." After clicking on this button, all journals for January will be calculated.
After calculating journals, you click on the menu button "Consolidation." You find January 2024 and click on "Consolidate." Konsolidator now consolidates the budget for January. There will automatically be a tick mark in the closed column. The period will now appear closed on the blue top bar.
Now the period is consolidated, and you switch to February 2024 on the blue top bar and perform the same steps for the period February 2024 to March 2024.
These tasks you must do for each period in the correct order for the first part of your fiscal year.
Now you have completed the upload and consolidation of your budget/forecast.
It is possible in Konsolidator to have two templates in the same excel workbook. The first nine months can be presented and accumulated in one sheet, and the remaining three months in a previous calendar year can be presented in another excel sheet. Konsolidator reads all files from left to right.
Therefore, you need to switch the order of the two sheets when changing between calendar years. Attached is a template that illustrates the example above with two upload templates in one file:
Upload template - broken fiscal year - ÆNDRE LINK
Please also remember that all numbers are year-to-date numbers accumulating during the year.