If you want to report on budgets but don’t use QuickBooks for your budgeting, FinJinni can incorporate a data file that you supply with budget data. This also allows you to create a more-detailed budget, using accounts, classes, customers, and other entities (such as sales reps or departments).

This feature is only available if you have purchased the license for the FinJinni Importer advanced data loading feature. It is enabled in the trial versions so that you can preview it.

FinJinni’s will load budget data from CSV-format files that you can create with Excel. There is a separate file for each QuickBooks company and you can either create a separate file for each budget or combine multiple budgets in one file. All files should be saved in the folder “documents”\My Templates\FinJinni, where “documents” is your normal documents folder.

These files can be created directly from Excel spreadsheets using simple Excel programming macros. For examples of how to enter and create these budgets, please contact GypsyBI LLC sales or support.

The budget data files that FinJinni will load are named “companyid_budget_[suffix].csv”, where “companyid” is the company identifier (aka nick-name) that you assigned when you added the company to FinJinni and “suffix” is a value to uniquely identify the file if needed – you can pick anything you want for this, such as a year.

The FinJinni Excel Add-In can also assist in saving these CSV-format data files from Excel worksheets. Once you create a worksheet with the columns described below, use the Upload button on the FinJinni ribbon bar in Excel to save the worksheet as a CSV file. You can also save it using the normal Excel menu – the FinJinni Upload button is a convenient shortcut.

These files have the following columns and require a header with the column name in the first row:

1. BudgetName

A name for the budget. You can use any name you like. Only the first data row of a budget needs to have this value, you can leave it blank on subsequent rows. 

2. Date

The date for the budget line. This is generally day 1 of a month, but it can be a different date in special circumstances – Most of FinJinni’s reports will use a date range and as long as the budget date lies within the range, it will be picked up. 

3. Account

The account name or description (in the format “number  – name”).  This can also be the full name for an account (in the format “parent:child” used by QuickBooks). Any of these formats that uniquely identifies the account is sufficient.

4. Amount

The budget amount. 

5. Class

A class name. If you have parent & child classes, this must be the full name in the format “parent:child”. This is an optional column, omit or leave blank if not used. 

6. Customer

A customer,  or full sub-customer name in the format “parent:child”. Projects or jobs are sub-customers and need their parent customer identified. This is an optional column, omit or leave blank if not used. 

7. OtherEntity

An employee or vendor name. This is an optional column, omit or leave blank if not used. 

8. Sub_Budget

Enter a budget sub-name to divide a budget into multiple sub-budgets, each of which is loaded from a separate file. All sub-budgets with the same budget name are combined for reporting. This is an optional column, omit or leave blank if not used.

For an example, look at the supplied file “samplecompany_Budget_2018.csv”. Then replace “samplecompany” with the name you have used for your company in FinJinni and “2018” with a value of your choice.

Usage Notes:

1. If you are using this feature with a QuickBooks Desktop file, do not check the “Load Budget Data” option on the setup screen. That option is only used to load budgets from QuickBooks.
2. Budget files are automatically loaded whenever a refresh is performed. FinJinni will detect whenever the budget file is changed (or a new file is added) and load the file.
3. You can perform an initial load manually, using the Advanced Options button on the Setup screen, that options screen has a “Reload Transaction Files” button – i.e., press these buttons in sequence, then choose the option Reload Custom Budget Data.
4. If you need to delete or rename a budget, keep in mind that FinJinni loads budgets incrementally and that budgets are identified by name, not date. There are two ways that a budget will be deleted if you have removed it from the data files:

A.When a full load of the company is performed. All old budget data is cleared before loading budget data from your files.

B.If a line containing only the budget name (no accounts or values) is placed in a budget data file. All data for that particu-

                     lar budget name is deleted when the file is loaded.