Budgets and Forecast
Create monthly plan targets, compare them with actuals, and model cash separately in Forecast.
Eigenn separates budgeting from forecasting:
- Finances → Budgets stores monthly expense or revenue targets.
- Finances → Forecast models future revenue, expenses, cash, and uncertainty from history plus explicit assumptions.
They support the same operating decision, but one does not automatically rewrite the other.
Access and prerequisites
Budgets and Forecast require a team workspace.
- Owners and Members can create, edit, delete, bulk-update, and scenario-plan budgets.
- Viewers can read budget queries but cannot mutate team budgets.
- Forecast execution and saved-scenario changes are write-backed operations, so use an Owner or Member account.
- Forecast must also be enabled for the workspace.
For reliable comparisons, keep transaction categories, revenue records, connected balances, and reporting currency current.
Budget concepts
Every budget record has:
- Type: Expense or Revenue
- Category: one transaction category or Whole team
- Amount
- Currency
- Month
- optional Note
The create sheet requires an amount greater than zero. Budgets are month-granular.
Within one plan, the same team, category, type, month, currency, and budget scenario cannot have duplicate records. If an equivalent row already exists, edit it instead.
Create a monthly budget
- Open Finances → Budgets.
- Select New budget.
- Choose Expense or Revenue under Type.
- Select a category or Whole team.
- Enter Amount and Currency.
- Choose the Month.
- Add Note (optional).
- Select Create budget.
The confirmation says Budget created. The new row appears in List and contributes to plan-versus-actual summaries.
Use Edit to open Edit budget and Save changes. Use Delete to permanently remove a row.
List view
Select List to search and manage individual records.
Controls include:
- Search budgets, which searches category and note
- All types, Expense, or Revenue
- Edit
- Delete
Columns are Category, Type, Month, Amount, Note, and Actions.
When no record exists, select Create budget from the empty state. When filters hide all rows, select Clear filters.
Budget vs Actual
The summary defaults to a trailing 12-month range and to Expense when no type is selected.
| Selected type | Favorable result | Unfavorable result |
|---|---|---|
| Expense | Under budget or On budget | Over budget |
| Revenue | Above target or On target | Below target |
Variance is Actual minus Budgeted.
Utilization is Actual divided by Budgeted. The bar is capped visually at 100%, while the numeric utilization can communicate the full calculated percentage.
When All types is selected, the summary and pacing sections still default to Expense. Select Revenue explicitly for revenue-target analysis.
Track and pace
Track & pace shows:
- current-month actual
- current-month budget
- projected end-of-month value
- On track, Projected over, or Projected under
- monthly Budget and Actual bars
- projected annual result compared with annual budget
Current-month projection extrapolates the month-to-date run rate across the full month. It does not model seasonality or probability.
The annual projection uses actuals through the current month and budget values for later months. It is a plan projection, not the cash-flow Forecast workbench.
Grid view
Select Grid for a category-by-month annual matrix.
The grid includes:
- one row per category plus Whole team
- January through December
- row, month, and grand totals
- previous- and next-year controls
- an automatically saved editable cell model
Enter a number or a formula in a cell. Changes save after the cell is committed. A failed save shows Couldn't save budget changes.
Build-fast tools
| Control | Result |
|---|---|
| Copy across | Copies the selected source month's value across every month in each row. |
| Grow | Compounds each row monthly from the selected source month using the entered percentage. |
| Round to | Rounds every populated cell to the selected increment. |
| Seed from actuals | Copies prior-year category actuals into the selected year. Whole-team actuals are not seeded. |
| AI draft | Opens the same AI suggestion workflow as Suggest with AI. |
| Clear all | Removes all amounts and formulas for the active year and budget scenario. |
Build-fast controls replace formulas in the rows they change with literal values.
Formulas
Start a cell with an equals sign. Supported examples include:
=prev*1.05to grow from the prior month=avg(actuals)to use the row's loaded actuals=@revenue*0.1to reference another category row
A formula cell shows its computed value when unfocused. Formula errors appear in the cell, such as #DIV/0!. Cross-category references recompute the affected grid.
Named budget versions
The Grid scenario control separates:
- Base plan, the implicit default version
- named alternative budget scenarios
Use Scenario actions to:
- create New scenario
- Duplicate the active named scenario or base plan
- Rename a named scenario
- Delete a named scenario
Budget-scenario names must be unique within the team. Base plan cannot be renamed or deleted. Deleting a named scenario also deletes its budget cells.
These named budget versions are not the saved scenarios under Forecast. Duplicating a budget scenario does not create forecast assumptions.
In the current Budgets page, the scenario selector applies to Grid. List, Budget vs Actual, and Track & pace continue to use the Base plan. Switch back to Base plan when you want the grid and the summary sections to describe the same version.
Suggest budgets with AI
- Select Suggest with AI or AI draft.
- Review the detected trailing spend.
- Optionally enter Expected monthly income.
- Select Generate suggestion.
- Review each allocation and rationale.
- Deselect categories you do not want.
- Select Apply N budgets.
The suggestion:
- analyzes the last three months of categorized spend
- averages monthly spend by category
- creates selected allocations as current-month Expense budgets in the Base plan
- uses the active currency
- requires a matching transaction category
It does not create Revenue budgets, future-month budgets, or Forecast drivers.
If no categorized spend exists, the sheet says No categorized spend found in the last 3 months and generation is disabled.
Existing current-month category budgets and unmatched category names are skipped. Review warnings and every allocation before applying.
Forecast is a different model
Open Finances → Forecast to model:
- current cash from enabled accounts
- historical revenue and expenses
- probabilistic P10, P50, and P90 outcomes
- revenue shock and growth
- client cancellation
- headcount change
- expense surge and one-time expense
- collection delay, acceleration, and recovery
- FX sensitivity
The workbench offers 6-, 12-, and 24-month horizons and compares Baseline, Active plan, and Defensive plan.
Budget cells are not automatically passed into the Forecast engine. If the forecast should reflect the budget, translate the relevant plan changes into explicit Forecast assumptions.
Keep the records separate
| Record | What it is | What changes it |
|---|---|---|
| Actual | Recorded revenue, expense, transaction, invoice, or cash data | Sync, import, classification, and operational updates |
| Budget | Monthly plan target | New budget, Edit, Grid, AI suggestion, or budget scenario |
| Forecast | Modeled continuation of history | Forecast horizon, history, calibration, and current cash |
| Stress scenario | Forecast with explicit downside or upside drivers | Assumption builder, preset, load, or reset |
| Invoice insight | Invoice and collections analysis | Underlying invoice, payment, and receivables data |
| Shared view | Restricted widget or snapshot | Separate sharing workflow; not created by Budgets or Forecast |
Data freshness
- List and summary queries refresh after supported budget changes.
- Grid data is intentionally kept stable while editing and does not refetch on window focus.
- Switching year, type, currency, or named budget scenario loads that plan's data.
- Actuals depend on current recorded revenue and expense data.
- AI suggestion history depends on categorized spend in the last three months.
- Forecast reruns when its URL-backed inputs change; it does not read unsaved browser-only budget edits.
Verify budget success
A budget is ready for review when:
- the correct type, category, month, and currency are selected
- Budgeted and Actual use the intended date range
- Expense or Revenue is selected explicitly
- Track & pace reflects the current month
- Grid totals match the intended plan
- formulas have no visible errors
- the active budget scenario is the version you intended to edit
Troubleshooting
The summary is showing Expense
Select Revenue explicitly. All types leaves summary and pacing on their Expense default.
The AI suggestion is empty
Categorize spend and ensure the last three months contain data in the active currency.
Applying AI skipped categories
The category may already have a current-month budget or the generated name may not match a workspace transaction category.
Grid changes disappeared
Look for Couldn't save budget changes. Also confirm the year, budget type, currency, and named scenario did not change.
Seed from actuals reports no data
The selected prior year has no usable category actuals. Whole-team actuals are intentionally not seeded.
Forecast does not match the budget
This is expected unless history and explicit Forecast assumptions represent the plan. Budgets are not automatically imported as forecast drivers.
A Viewer cannot edit
Budget changes and forecast runs require Owner or Member write access.