Budgets that reconcile to the posted ledger
A cost-centre master, versioned scenarios, an entry grid that does the arithmetic, GL-backed variance on any dimension, a rolling forecast, an approval chain and CAPEX planning — the planning surface, in the Cloud edition.
Versions, scenarios and a grid that does the arithmetic
Budgets are fiscal-year-scoped versions with a scenario (base, best, worst, expected or custom) and a lifecycle — create, copy forward with an uplift, lock, archive. The entry grid pivots the line discriminator (head or account, plus cost centre, branch or project) against the version’s periods. Spread an annual figure evenly, seasonally or manually and the largest-remainder apportionment makes the parts sum exactly to the annual — never a paise gained or lost — or drive a line from rate × volume.
Variance straight off the General Ledger
Budget versus actual versus forecast, sliced by cost centre, project or branch with period roll-up. The actuals come from posted journal lines, so the matrix reconciles to the GL to the paisa rather than to a parallel spreadsheet. Favourability follows the head kind — beating budget is good on revenue, coming in under it is good on cost. When a company has never tagged a journal line, the report says so and falls back rather than quietly reporting zero.
Rolling forecast and an approval chain
The rolling forecast blends actuals for the elapsed months of the fiscal year with an engine forecast for the remainder — a plain concatenation, so nothing is double-counted at the boundary — and shows the variance to plan. It is deterministic: a fixed as-of date reproduces the same figure on a re-run. A draft version is submitted into a department → finance → management → board chain and approvers act in the shared Approvals inbox.
Plan from your own drivers, and plan the capital
A planner opening a blank grid has to invent next year. Domain Planning instead proposes lines from each domain’s own driver data — sales and purchase history, an open production plan, project budgets, installment schedules, fleet running cost — into a period grid you review and edit before committing through the same single write path. CAPEX Planning registers capital items and forecasts SLM or WDV depreciation per fiscal year with closing net book value, plus per-item ROI and payback.
A scorecard and an advisor that work with AI off
A balanced scorecard spans the financial, customer, internal and learning perspectives, each KPI bound to a structured GL metric, with weighted attainment per perspective, an overall band and a snapshot per KPI for the trend line. The Budget Advisor ranks every live version worst-first, then surfaces that version’s recommendations and its top variance drivers as structured findings — a written narration is optional, the findings are not.
What’s included
- Cost-centre master with a parent rollup tree
- Versioned budgets — scenario, status, copy-forward with uplift, lock & archive
- Pivot entry grid: even / seasonal / manual spread and rate × volume drivers
- Non-destructive saves — every commit snapshots the prior lines
- GL-backed variance by cost centre, project or branch, with period roll-up
- Rolling forecast — elapsed actuals blended with a forecast remainder
- Approval chain: department → finance → management → board
- Balanced scorecard across four perspectives with KPI trend snapshots
- CAPEX register — SLM/WDV depreciation, closing NBV, ROI & payback
- Domain planning proposals from sales, purchase, production, project & fleet drivers
- Reusable budget templates to start next year from a shape you have already agreed
- Budget Advisor — version health, recommendations & top variance drivers
Frequently asked
Do the actuals in variance match my P&L?
Yes — variance reads the posted journal lines, so the matrix reconciles to the General Ledger to the paisa. If no journal line has ever been tagged with a dimension, the report shows a cash-basis fallback banner instead of pretending the dimension exists.
Can someone quietly overwrite the plan?
No. Every commit snapshots the prior lines before writing, and locking a version blocks writes on the server as well as in the UI — the grid disables the controls, and the server rejects the call regardless.
Is budgeting part of the offline desktop app?
No — the planning surface ships in the Cloud edition as its own grantable module, so a planner can be given Planning without the rest of the books. It does not run in, or sync to, the offline desktop edition.
What exactly is included in Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition?
cost-centre master with a parent rollup tree, versioned budgets — scenario, status, copy-forward with uplift, lock & archive, pivot entry grid: even / seasonal / manual spread and rate × volume drivers, non-destructive saves — every commit snapshots the prior lines, GL-backed variance by cost centre, project or branch, with period roll-up and rolling forecast — elapsed actuals blended with a forecast remainder, and 6 more. Every item on that list is a working screen you can open in the trial rather than a capability described in the abstract.
How is budgeting & fp&a · cloud edition handled differently here?
It rests on versions, scenarios and a grid that does the arithmetic, variance straight off the General Ledger, rolling forecast and an approval chain, plan from your own drivers, and plan the capital and a scorecard and an advisor that work with AI off. The distinction that matters is that these are structural rather than cosmetic — the behaviour is built into how records are posted, not layered on as a report you have to remember to run.
Does Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition post to the real books?
Yes, and that is the whole reason it lives in this product rather than beside it. What versions, scenarios and a grid that does the arithmetic records lands in the same posted double-entry ledger the Trial Balance, P&L and GST returns are built from — so there is no second set of budgeting & fp&a · cloud edition numbers to reconcile against the first.
How does Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition affect my GST?
It feeds it directly rather than sitting alongside it. CGST/SGST and IGST are split from HSN or SAC and place of supply as each document is raised, so whatever budgeting & fp&a · cloud edition produces is already correct when GSTR-1, 3B and 2B reconciliation are drawn off the same books. The return matches the accounts because it was never a separate exercise.
Can I try Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition before committing?
Yes — 14 days, no card. Test budgeting & fp&a · cloud edition against your own masters and your own transactions rather than sample data: the questions worth answering here are about your business's edge cases, and a demo dataset is built not to have any.
Is anything in Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition generated by AI?
None of the figures. Everything versions, scenarios and a grid that does the arithmetic produces is computed by tested engines and would be identical with the model switched off — what AI contributes is the sentence around a number and the routing that brings the right one to your attention. Nothing it writes posts to your books without your approval.
Can I get my budgeting & fp&a · cloud edition data out again?
Yes. On the Desktop edition everything Budgeting & FP&A · Cloud edition records sits in a local database on a disk you choose, with scheduled encrypted backups you control — stopping payment leaves you holding a readable file. On the Cloud edition your data is isolated to your business by row-level security and exportable from the reports it feeds.