What does "Budget Year" mean on the reports?

peter088

Across the top of some of the reports are the drop down boxes "Date Range," "Budget," and "Budget Year" which on my reports is set to 2020 and has no other values. Can anyone explain to me what the purpose or function of this field is?

Chris_QPW

Peter said:

So, long story short, this is largely a feature of interest only to small businesses?

Correct.  Whereas personal taxes are always done on the calendar years.  Businesses have the choice to start on any month in the year, and end 12 months later in the next year.  And as such they will also want budget using the same "year" period.

GeoffG

You can setup a budget in one of two ways. One is to create a single budget that spans forever just pushing out another year. The other (which I prefer) is to create a new budget each year... about this time... that is annual. When you have multi year budgets set up, you can select the drop downs to review multiple budget years.

NotACPA

For individuals, "Budget year" almost always means Calendar year.

The exception would be if you pay your Federal Income Taxes on something other than a Calendar year basis.

IF you use Q for a small business, it still means "tax year".

peter088

Thanks NotACPA. Do you know why there is only a single value? I've gone back to files dating back several years and even though the data spans a decade or more, there is still only one value in this drop down box. Is it actually good for anything?

Thanks,

Peter

NotACPA

In EDIT, Preferences, you set your "Calendar Year" ...so Q only need to know WHICH calendar year.

If you're running a small business with a different Tax Year, it needs it's own Q data file ...  as your tax year is almost certainly the calendar year.

peter088

So, long story short, this is largely a feature of interest only to small businesses?

Chris_QPW

Peter said:

So, long story short, this is largely a feature of interest only to small businesses?

Correct.  Whereas personal taxes are always done on the calendar years.  Businesses have the choice to start on any month in the year, and end 12 months later in the next year.  And as such they will also want budget using the same "year" period.

peter088

Great answer. Thank you very much,

Peter