Episode 44: Stop Guessing: How to Build a Business Budget in QuickBooks You’ll Actually Use

Can your business afford to hire, buy equipment or expand next year? A useful budget helps you answer those questions with a plan you can actually use.

In this episode of QuickBooks Mastery for Small Business Success, Erica Northrup and Lee Davis explain how to build a realistic business budget in QuickBooks—and how to use it throughout the year.

Drawing on a real client budgeting project, they discuss where to begin, how to use historical Profit & Loss information, why seasonal businesses should not automatically divide annual numbers by twelve, and how your Chart of Accounts affects the usefulness of your budget.

They also explore Budget vs. Actual: how to understand the story behind a variance, decide which differences need attention, and use your numbers to guide business decisions.

Planning for 2027? Download the free 2027 Business Budget Planning Worksheet in the Resources section to document your assumptions, draft your monthly budget and review your results.

Key Takeaways

• A business budget is a financial plan for what the business wants to accomplish.
• Begin with historical Profit & Loss information, but do not automatically turn last year’s actual numbers into next year’s budget.
• A useful budget reflects reasonable assumptions about revenue, pricing, costs, staffing, contracts, capacity and business changes.
• Ask: What has to happen operationally for this number to be true?
• Revenue and expenses should be placed in the months when they are actually expected to occur.
• Do not automatically divide every annual budget number by twelve, especially in a seasonal business.
• Your Chart of Accounts should support the information you actually need from the budget and Profit & Loss.
• Budget vs. Actual turns the budgeting process into an ongoing management tool.
• Being over budget is not automatically bad, and being under budget is not automatically good. The important question is why.
• Investigate meaningful variances rather than simply labelling them as over or under budget.
• Make Budget vs. Actual part of your monthly reporting process, with more frequent tracking when your business needs it.
• Keep the original budget intact so you can see how reality differed from what you originally expected.
• Budgeting becomes more useful each year as your assumptions, systems and review process improve.

Questions to Reflect On

• What do you realistically expect revenue to be next year?
• What has to happen operationally for that revenue number to become reality?
• What costs will be required to generate that revenue?
• Which expenses are recurring monthly, quarterly, annually or seasonally?
• Are material costs, fuel, wages, rent, insurance or subscriptions changing?
• Are you planning new hires, equipment purchases, expansion or new services?
• Which months are naturally stronger or slower for your business?
• Does your Chart of Accounts give you the information you actually need?
• Which expenses have changed significantly during the past year?
• If revenue increases, does your business have the capacity to deliver the additional work?
• Which Budget-vs.-Actual differences are meaningful enough to require action?
• Does your current performance support the hires, purchases and goals you are considering?

Chapters

00:00 QuickBooks Mastery Podcast Introduction

00:55 Episode 44: Stop Guessing — Build a Business Budget You’ll Actually Use

02:31 Does a Small Business Really Need a Formal Budget?

03:57 A Budget Is More Than a Spending Limit

05:22 Where to Start Building a Budget in QuickBooks

06:45 Why Last Year’s Numbers Are Only a Starting Point

09:07 Why You Shouldn’t Divide Your Annual Budget by 12

10:23 When Your Budget and Chart of Accounts Don’t Match

12:39 Building a Realistic Budget Instead of a Wish List

14:33 What Has to Happen for This Number to Be True?

15:06 The Real Value: QuickBooks Budget vs. Actual

16:46 Understanding the Story Behind a Budget Variance

17:44 Why Being Over Budget Isn’t Always Bad

18:28 How Often Should You Review Budget vs. Actual?

19:53 Should You Change the Budget Midyear?

21:09 The Questions to Ask During Every Budget Review

22:59 Turning QuickBooks Into a Decision-Making Tool

23:42 Your Practical First Step: Build the Budget

24:41 Focus on the Expenses That Actually Matter

25:21 Your Budgeting Homework for This Week

26:19 QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard

26:34 QuickBooks Mastery Program and Waitlist

26:56 Lee’s Final Advice on Budgeting

27:29 Episode Wrap-Up

27:45 Podcast Outro

Mentioned in This Episode

• QuickBooks budgeting tools and Profit & Loss reports
• Calendar-year versus fiscal-year budgeting
• Historical financial information and zero-based budgeting
• Revenue assumptions, pricing and capacity
• Cost of goods sold, payroll and staffing
• Material, fuel, wage, rent and insurance increases
• Subscription and contract renewals
• Seasonal revenue and expenses
• Chart of Accounts structure, budget categories and subaccounts
• Budget vs. Actual reports, dollar variances and percentage variances
• Monthly, quarterly and more frequent budget reviews
• Keeping the original budget intact
• Using Excel as a first-draft budgeting tool
• The free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard
• The upcoming QuickBooks Mastery program

Resources

Free 2027 Business Budget Planning Worksheet

Work through the planning questions from this episode, document your assumptions, build a twelve-month business budget and review your Budget vs. Actual results. The editable Excel workbook includes annual calculations, a monthly Revenue and Net Profit chart, and space to explain meaningful variances and decide what action is needed.

Download the free 2027 Business Budget Planning Worksheet (Excel)

Episode 6: How to Create a Budget in QuickBooks

Revisit our original budgeting episode for the foundations of creating and using a budget inside QuickBooks. Then use Episode 44 to go deeper into assumptions, seasonality and managing against the plan.

Listen to Episode 6

Free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard

If you are not confident that the numbers already sitting in QuickBooks are accurate enough to build a budget from, begin with the free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard.

Get the free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard

QuickBooks Mastery Program Waitlist

Join the waitlist for our complete QuickBooks Mastery program and be the first to know when enrolment opens.

Join the QuickBooks Mastery waitlist

More Episodes and Support

Listen to QuickBooks Mastery for Small Business Success

Visit Lee Davis & Company

Questions or support: [email protected]

Your Practical Next Step

Run your current year-to-date Profit & Loss and compare it with the same period from last year. Go back another year if it would help reveal longer-term trends.

Look specifically at revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, net profit, payroll and your largest operating expenses. Then ask what you reasonably expect to change next year.

Use the 2027 Business Budget Planning Worksheet to document your assumptions and build the first draft of your budget. Spread the numbers across the months when you realistically expect them to occur, then enter the plan into QuickBooks.

Make Budget vs. Actual part of your regular reporting process. When the results differ from the plan, ask why—and use the answer to decide what needs to happen next.

Subscribe to QuickBooks Mastery for Small Business Success, share this episode with another business owner planning for next year, and send your questions to [email protected].

Welcome to QuickBooks Mastery for Small Business Success.

I'm Erica Northrup.

And I'm Lee Davis.

I handle the tech, and he handles the numbers, and together

as a father-daughter team, we bring decades of experience helping small

to medium-sized businesses thrive.

We know that as a business owner, your time is best spent mastering

your craft and growing your business, not getting lost in QuickBooks.

Managing finances can be confusing, and you don't have hours to waste

sorting through spreadsheets or fixing bookkeeping mistakes.

That's where we come in, helping you streamline QuickBooks so you

can focus on building your business.

Each week, we break it all down into simple, actionable steps

so you can focus on growing your business, not fixing your books.

Let's embark on this journey together.

Mastery for Small Business Success.

I'm Erica Northrup, and I'm here with my papa, Lee Davis, the one, the only.

And I am so grateful that we are on this journey, that we are doing this,

that we are showing up every week for you, our listeners, and I'm so grateful

you have joined us on this journey.

So this is episode 44, Stop Guessing, How to Build a Business Budget in

QuickBooks You'll Actually Use.

Papa, we're getting towards the end of the year, which is a little freaky.

I mean, it just feels like it was the start of 2026, and here we

are, almost at the end of 2026.

Just so crazy.

Which means a lot of business owners are going to start thinking about next year.

What do we want to earn?

What are we going to spend?

Can we hire somebody?

Can we buy equipment?

Can we increase payroll?

Can we actually afford the plans we're making?

And I think a lot of small business owners answer those questions mostly

from instinct, but QuickBooks has a tool sitting right inside it that can help you

answer them with actual numbers, a budget.

And you've been working with a client recently on setting up and actually using

their budget inside of QuickBooks, so I thought this was the perfect time to talk

about it, with all that we're doing to help people actually plan for next year.

So let's start there, Papa, because I think when people hear budget,

they sometimes think of a giant corporation with a finance department.

Let's answer that question, Papa, for our listener.

Does a small business really need a formal budget?

You talked about the client that we are basing this podcast on because

when you go back to look at what they actually needed, they had an opportunity

to start their budget from square one.

So they really wanted a good budget.

It wasn't gonna be just an exercise.

It was gonna be a way for them to utilize the QuickBooks budgeting process and make

it useful for their board on the budget.

So I think as we talk about the budget, and you said about the benefits that

a, a budget can make and can be used for a business- It's tremendous because

lots of times boards or companies will use the budgeting form, the budgeting

report, as part of their monthly report.

So I think it is critical.

It is critical when you start and look at the budget and start estimating

your revenue, cost of goods sold, payroll, operating expenses, and

you think about major purchases-

Yeah

… Lee: and ultimately profit.

If you create a target, it forces you to think ahead.

Oh, absolutely.

You really think twice about, "Do I actually need to do that?"

Or, "Do I actually need to make that decision that's gonna cost me more money?"

Or whatever the case may be.

And really, Erica, a budget isn't just about limiting spending.

I think a budget can be part of the company culture-

Yeah

… Lee: where- Absolutely … you start saying, "Okay, so what does

the business want to accomplish?"

Yeah.

Both organizationally and then financially.

So a budget also helps you monitor your revenue and expenses through the year.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and that's an important distinction, Papa, because when most of

us hear the word budget, we think, "Here's everything I can't spend money on."

But for a business, you're really saying, "Here's where we think the

business is going, and here's what needs to happen financially to get there."

That's really what you're saying, isn't it, Papa?

Exactly.

And QuickBooks has several tools that can help you project your income and expenses.

You can certainly print out your profit and loss reports for the current

and past year, and you're able to analyze those costs and your revenue,

because there are some costs that seem to increase on a yearly basis.

And your revenue tracking might help you to say, "Okay, yeah, I think

the 5% or 7% increase in my revenues or based on contracts or whatever,"

gives you a good picture about what your budget might look like.

Absolutely.

Okay, so I'm a business owner.

I've never created a real budget in QuickBooks.

Papa, where do I start?

So QuickBooks has a budgeting tool built into it, and if you go into

the gear icon, that's where you start.

You click on that gear icon, and it will take you into the tools, the

company tools, and that's where you can actually begin with budgeting.

Mm-hmm.

And you can budget either based on a calendar year or a fiscal year, however

you normally- run your financials would be the way you set up your budget.

There's some questions you might ask.

What do you realistically expect your revenue to be?

What costs will be required to generate that revenue?

What recurring expenses do you know are coming?

Are these expenses that only happen during certain months?

Are you planning on any new hires or purchases or expansion?

Look at your profit and loss report, and if you like to make some changes

in your account structure, this is a good time to add an account

before you start on the budget.

Then QuickBooks becomes the place where you organize these assumptions.

It's many ways like a giant Excel sheet, really.

If that's really what it is, and QuickBooks has just turned

it into a budget process.

That makes a lot of sense.

Okay, so QuickBooks can use previous information when you're building a budget.

Should somebody simply take last year's numbers and use

those as the new budget, Papa?

No, not automatically.

Last year's are actual numbers, and they're an excellent starting point,

but a budget should reflect what you believe is going to happen next year.

So in some ways, I believe in zero-based budgeting-

Mm-hmm … meaning you start new.

If you want to work in Excel, like some of my clients do, on their first draft

of their budget just to see what it looks like, you can drop your profit

and loss statement into Excel, and you can play with it that way, especially if

you're considering some major changes.

The questions you wanna ask yourself again, I think, is

revenue expected to grow?

Have prices changed?

Are material costs changing?

I was just talking with one of our landscapers today, and gas has gone

up 100%- Mm … over last year.

Oh, man.

Yeah, crazy.

So it's doubled if not.

So a tank of gas that cost initially 140 is now costing 260.

His question was, "Okay, h- how does that affect what we need to budget?"

Think about pricing.

Do we need a fuel surcharge?

And these are real questions that you can look at when you're

seeing spikes in your expenses.

Are material costs changing?

For example, he also talked about salt.

Yeah.

Salt's gone up significant in price.

What do we do about that?

We have some fixed contracts.

Are wages going up?

Has rent increased?

Are insurance premiums changing?

Are there subscriptions in, or contracts that are renewing?

Are you hiring?

Are you gonna need to look at maybe increasing what you're paying your staff?

Are you eliminating something?

In other words, looking at your costs, are you gonna look at something

you need to make a reduction in?

And are you adding a new product or service?

A useful budget is based on reasonable assumptions, not

simply copying your history.

Absolutely.

Okay, so there's a difference between this is what happened last year and

this is what we believe is going to happen next year, isn't there, Papa?

Exactly.

That's really the purpose of budgeting.

Absolutely.

Okay, so there's something interesting in the recording you made while you were

actually entering a client's budget.

QuickBooks can take an annual amount and spread it evenly across 12 months,

which is extremely convenient, but that isn't always the way a business

actually operates, is it, Papa?

Yeah, that's true.

It does not operate that way.

Some businesses are seasonal.

Mm-hmm.

Some revenues may happen primarily in certain months.

Some expenses might occur quarterly, annually, seasonally, around an event.

During a busy production period or when a major purchase is planned.

So don't automatically divide every number by 12.

If the company expects 120,000 revenue for the year, that

doesn't mean 10,000 a month.

It could mean that's spread out.

Some cases it could be 6,000, or it could be 18, or it could be 20.

So the idea is the budget should resemble how the business actually operates.

Absolutely.

And that becomes really important later when you compare the budget to

the actual results, because otherwise you might think you're doing terribly

in February when February was always supposed to be a very slow month.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So good.

Okay.

So something else came up when you were building this client's budget.

Their budget had categories that didn't completely line up with

the accounts inside QuickBooks.

What happened, Papa?

Talk us through that.

Yeah.

This particular client- Mm … she took over a, an organization that she really

needed to get her hands around the operating expenses, and so she chose the

budgeting process to make that happen.

Mm.

And so she really attacked the profit and loss and said, "Okay, I need to know

what's in each account and what is charged to that account, and does that make sense?

And if not, then I need to move it over here, over to another

account, and make it a sub-account.

Or I need to make a whole separate account, and I need to name it

something else so that I can have a good feel when I present the numbers

each month to the board of directors."

She took the process and really ran with it, and it allowed us to go

ahead and reorganize the profit and loss according to what made sense

for the organization and for her.

So it, she wanted a budget and a report that actually worked for the way that

was appropriate for the organization.

That's why the chart of accounts matters.

Mm-hmm.

So I said, "If we're gonna make these changes, let's make

them for the new fiscal year."

Yeah.

"And don't try and get too many accounts, but make sure that, again, the profit and

loss works for how you want to use it.

And the goal is useful information."

For the end user

Yeah

And there are accounts that may need to be added or moved within the chart of

accounts to appear on the profit and loss statement under the appropriate account.

Yeah, and that's consistent with something you said

throughout this podcast, Papa.

Don't make QuickBooks more complicated than the business requires.

You have stated that so many times in so many different ways.

Most of the time it's just about simplifying, like boiling- Mm-hmm … it

down to what actually matters.

Yeah.

The chart of accounts should support the information the owner actually needs.

Yeah, absolutely.

And this may be the harder part, Papa.

Anybody can type numbers into boxes.

How do you know whether you've created a realistic budget instead of a wish list?

I mean, I've got some great big wish lists out there.

But- If you pull it down to reality, what does that really look like?

Well, I think you need to look at historical revenue and look

at your expenses, current trends.

If you've got new contracts, if you've eliminated some contracts or

you've made a decision that maybe this contract isn't profitable- Mm-hmm

then you need to have a good feel for what contracts are going into

the season, into a new budget season.

Understand what the costs of staffing are.

W- what's your pricing need to look like?

How much capacity do you have to take on new clients?

And then what are your plan changes, and what are your contingencies for price

increases or something that's seasonal?

You need to understand economic or industry changes that you

already know about, but be conservative in the budget process.

In other words, think on the high end of expense and the more

realistic low end of your income.

Mm-hmm.

And you need to ask what has happened operationally for this number to be true.

So in other words, if revenue's going from one million to 1.5,

where does the additional 500,000 come from?

Yeah, absolutely.

And you got more customers, higher prices, more volume,

new services, more staff.

You need to have a financial target in terms of how it

fits in the overall operation.

That is so true, and I think it really boils down to you

really looking at your business and thinking strategically, how can we

get to the point we wanna get to?

What is the solution for this new number that we need to obtain in

order to even sometimes just keep par with all the changes in prices and

things that are going on, for sure.

And you know, I love this question.

What has to happen for this number to be true?

Because if the answer is, "I don't know.

I just want revenue to go up 30%," that's not really a plan, is it, Papa?

That's right.

That's a wish list.

Yeah, absolutely.

I got a long one.

But, you know, and I think this might be the most important part of this

entire episode, so listen up, you guys.

A lot of businesses probably create a budget once, put it in a folder

somewhere, and never look at it again.

That's not really useful, is it, Papa?

No.

The real value begins after the budget is created, and that's where the

budget versus actual report comes in.

Yeah, absolutely.

So Papa, I would love for you to explain budget versus actual,

because you got pretty excited about this in your follow-up recording.

So break it down for us, Papa.

So QuickBooks has this great tool- And really, I don't think

people take advantage of it.

Yeah.

Because you can have a report that you can spit out monthly that says your

budget versus actual, and if you've put all your time into creating a realistic

budget, all right, just because maybe you took a weekend or maybe you took

two weeks- Yeah … and you did a lot of estimating on your budget, you really

felt like it would be a good opportunity to get down and dirty with the budgeting

process, then once you put it into the budget, you can now use it by comparing

your actuals to the budget you created.

And because you have good worksheets, you can go back and analyze, how

are we doing if you looked at it in three months or six months?

You can really look at those actual versus budgeted revenue and actual

expenses versus the budget, and you can see the dollar variance, and

you can see the percentage variance.

And then you can investigate meaningful differences because

you already have your worksheets.

Keep your worksheets when you're doing the budget process- Mm-hmm … 'cause it's

really helpful for both this year's budget and thinking about next year's budget.

Yes, absolutely.

I love how excited you get about this, Papa.

This is so good.

Okay.

So let's say we budgeted $50,000 in revenue for the

month and only did $40,000.

The useful question isn't simply we missed the budget, is it, Papa?

No, it's why.

What are the possible causes for revenue that you didn't hit the target?

It could have been fewer customers, lower sales volume, pricing.

It could be that it was delayed work.

You were actually gonna get that work, but it was delayed.

It could have been capacity.

It could have been seasonality.

It could be you lost a contract.

The same thing applies to expenses.

If payroll is 15% above budget, why?

Maybe that's bad, or maybe revenue is 30% higher and additional labor was required.

You have to understand the story behind the variance.

Absolutely.

The more powerful question, I think the most powerful question about

anything you can ask is really why.

That is so true.

Okay, so that's important, too.

Being over budget automatically sounds terrible, but it isn't

necessarily terrible, is it, Papa?

No, that's correct.

Hmm.

An expense over budget might be perfectly reasonable if it

helped create more revenue.

Hmm.

Likewise, being under budget isn't automatically good.

Maybe the marketing that should have gone out wasn't done, and

while that reduced the expense, it may have an impact on your revenue.

So it could be that revenue suffered.

The goal is you probably don't want to exceed the budget, but

you wanna understand why actual results differ from the plan.

That's so good, Papa.

Okay, so let's talk about how often we should be doing this.

So how often would you actually run budget versus actual, Papa?

Generally monthly.

You don't necessarily need to react to every variance, but you need to

look at the meaningful differences.

And then sometimes you wait a couple months, and you might look at it on a

quarterly basis before you think about maybe understanding some adjustments.

And so you might need to a- adjust operations where needed,

and you keep watching the trend.

And for some businesses or managers, more frequent internal tracking may be useful.

I was just talking with a client who was really concerned about his revenue

and needed to make some changes going into this year, and because clearly

his expenses Were higher to operate his business than he could sustain.

Mm-hmm.

So it was really important for him to start monitoring his revenue on

the budget monthly, if not weekly.

So he wanted to run his budget report on a weekly, which you can.

You can run your budget report for any- … amount of time you want.

Once it's created, you go for it.

So I think that you definitely can look at what works for various

companies and various owners.

Yeah, so good.

Okay, Papa, here's something I've always wondered.

Let's say you create the budget in December, then in

March something major happens.

Do you change the budget at that point?

I think the answer is no.

You maintain the original budget and forecasting.

If you continually rewrite it to match actual results, you lose

the ability to see what changed.

Really, the budget is, once it's created, it's not really a living document, okay?

It will live out by based on your profit and loss.

So when you're looking at your budget, you are simply making a forecast.

So think about it like that.

Budget equals original plan.

You might make some notes along the way on your worksheets that might help

you in forecasting your next budget.

Or you may write an underlying note to the board as it says, "Listen, we estimated

this, but this actually happened."

Mm-hmm.

So it's appropriate, and don't erase the history of what you originally expected.

Absolutely.

But that's a great question, Erica, 'cause some people think they,

the budget is a living document.

No, a budget is like the balance sheet.

It's at a point in time, okay?

Okay.

Yes.

So helpful, Papa.

Always so helpful.

Okay, so if somebody takes your advice and starts running a budget verse actual

report every month, what are the big questions you want them asking, Papa?

I think you wanna keep looking at this, and you wanna understand,

because sometimes it's communication.

Because when people review the budget, they have questions, right?

So you wanna anticipate those questions.

You wanna have gone over your budget versus actual before you present

it to your board and give them the overall highlights, 'cause they won't

have time, or the CEO, or whoever the end user is, they're not gonna

necessarily understand the backstory.

So you wanna have some budget notes.

So I think that's really important when you think about using the budget.

And the questions you wanna ask, are sales where we expect them to be?

Are our- Mm … gross margins where they should be?

Is payroll in line with the plan?

Which expenses are meaningful above budget?

Don't dwell on something that's $100 over the budget, okay?

Look at a number that's meaningful.

Which expenses are below budget and why?

And again, it could be the marketing plan that's delayed, and the board

may say, "Listen, get that marketing plan done, and we want that expense in

so we can meet our revenue targets."

So again, if something's changing month after month, then yeah, that's

probably important to put a note in, because you may wanna say, "Okay,

we've made some midyear adjustments based perhaps on our pricing.

Can we afford to really make that next hire or purchase?

Does our current performance support the goals we set?"

So I think those are all very good questions and good responses

to how you might use the budget.

Yeah, absolutely.

And this is where I think the bigger QuickBooks Mastery

idea comes in again, right?

QuickBooks Shouldn't simply tell you what happened.

That's valuable, but the real power is when you can use what happened to

help decide what should we do next.

A budget gives you a plan.

Your actual QuickBooks data tells you what happened, and budget versus

actual shows you the gap between the two, and that gap is where some of the

most useful business questions live.

Absolutely.

Okay, so let's give everybody something really practical to do,

Papa, 'cause you know I'm all about let's apply what- Mm-hmm … we're

learning to our actual business.

I just don't want you consuming.

I want you actually putting this stuff into practice.

If someone listening has never created a budget in QuickBooks, what would

you have them do this week, Papa?

I'd have them run their profit and loss for nine months, and

compare that to previous nine months.

And in some ways, if you want to go back and do it for three years,

and put it on an Excel spreadsheet.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, dump those numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, and it would begin to

start to look at some trends or things that you want to pay attention to.

Okay, so again, the profit and loss would be extremely helpful, and you

could look at revenue, you could look at your cost of goods sold.

You want to look at your gross profit, okay, and your net profit.

And you want to look at your major operating expenses.

I often say break down your operating expenses highest to lowest.

Don't spend time on your lower operating expenses.

That's not really where you're gonna get your biggest bang for your buck.

Look at your large expenses and see what story they tell.

Mm-hmm.

And then ask yourself what kind of changes are you expecting for next

year, and build the first version.

And you can build it in Excel.

Yep.

If, because you've dumped some work into Excel.

And then so when you move it into QuickBooks, it can give you

the first version of your budget that you can share with whoever

the, the board or the end user.

Yep.

Who are your shareholders in your business?

We all have shareholders in our business.

Even if those shareholders- True

are your family, they still need to know what's going on.

Right.

So good.

Okay, you guys, our listeners, our beloved listeners.

So your homework this week is pretty simple.

Don't wait until the end of next year to find out whether the year

went the way you wanted it to go.

Decide what you want the numbers to look like before the year begins.

Build the plan, put it into QuickBooks, then come back every month and

compare the plan with reality.

Use this report as part of your standard reporting each month.

And when they're different, don't just say, "We're over budget.

Oh, well."

Ask why, because the answer is where the actual business decisions live.

So good.

And if you're listening to this and thinking, "I don't even completely

trust the numbers already sitting in my QuickBooks, never mind trying

to build a budget from them," this is where you need to start.

If you're new around here, you may not have heard me talk about this,

but if you have and you haven't done this, what are you waiting for?

Start with our free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard.

It will help you figure out where your QuickBooks currently stands

and where you may have some gaps.

I'll link it in our show notes, and you can also find it at leedavisoncompany.com.

And we're continuing to build QuickBooks Mastery, our complete program designed

to help business owners understand their numbers, build better QuickBooks

systems, and actually use QuickBooks to make better business decisions.

You can join the wait list on our website at leedavisoncompany.com,

and you'll be the first to know when it opens.

So Papa, one last question.

If you could convince a business owner to change one thing about the way they think

about budgeting, what would it be, Papa?

I'd say don't consider it a waste of time.

Make it valuable.

Use it as a tool and sharpen it.

And then because a budgeting process can be something you do year over

year and you get better at it.

Yeah.

So like anything- I love that … put some time into it.

It will reward you in the end.

Yeah, just start.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

Right.

Just start.

That's what it comes down to.

Yeah.

So good.

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Mastery for small business success.

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