If you are using our standard Power BI Financial templates in BI Book (default) then this guide will show you how to add budgets into BI Book. For Forecasts, please see separate article on forecast. 


Why are Forecasts and Budgets different?

  • Forecasts are used in key measures for example to look at "year to come" and come with some features budgets do not have. Also, they are designed for frequent updating and interaction with your Power BI data set.
  • Budgets are used more as a comparison to a once per year (or a few times a year) updated data table and lacks some features, but is easier to handle.


Steps to think about before getting started: 

  • We suggest mapping to an accounting account level.
    • The reason for this is simple, it is the clearest and most sustainable way to import budgets and forecasts. If you want to budget on an aggregated format, then just map your budget to an account in the group you want the forecast in
  • Do you want to use dimensions?
    • What is a dimension? To put it simply, a dimension is a column in the general ledger
    • You can budget in any dimension combination you would like. 


Importing budget process: 

  1. Download one of our templates and put your budget in that template. (or send us your own template)
  2. Contact support to get the budgeting connector set-up
    1. Most common options are via Upload in BI Book, Sharepoint or Google Sheets. 
  3. Place the template file in the designated location
  4. Refresh the Power BI model


Basic budget import template: 

  • The basic budget import table contains the company name (schema), accounting account, dimensions 1-3, the period the budget is tagged to and the sum in the companies default currency. 
  • Download the budget template here: 

Budget import table Month-on-Month: