Spreadsheet
The Phoenix Budget program represents a Cash Book budget presented in a cash flow format to suit your accounting period. Each month is listed across the top of the spreadsheet.
The left side of the Cash Book section lists each of your Categories in turn. The spreadsheet always lists the income Categories first, then the expense Categories.
For each Category, you can see the budget or actual dollar amount for each month. The total dollar amount for the budget period is also shown under the Total label.
The spreadsheet titles and Total columns on the left-hand side are locked on the screen so that they can be seen at all times while the work area of the sheet is free to scroll both vertically and horizontally.
Budgets & Actuals
The spreadsheet is able to load either:
•Actual financial records.
•Budgets.
•Projected budgets.
Actual Financial Records
You may load your actual financial records to view and print your actual cash flow, or to carry out what if trial analysis on them.
You may also use your actual financial records as a basis for a new budget. For example, you may set up budgets for the coming year based on last year's records inflated by ten percent. Alternatively, you may want to adjust your figures to assess the effect of hypothetical circumstances or different business decisions during the year.
Budgets
You may use the spreadsheet to set up, recall, and analyse budgets. Any number of budgets can be saved for comparison to the accounting system, or for later use. Budgets can be pure projections, or may incorporate some variation of actual records.
Projected Budgets
Projected budgets are a combination of the previous two. A projected budget shows your actual financial records to date and the budget into the future. This minimises errors with budgets by correcting budget inaccuracies, as actual records become available.
Worktables
Any budget entry may be calculated using a Worktable. Worktables provide a complete record of how any budget amount was calculated. Any number of budget entries may have their own Worktable. Each Worktable may have any number of entry lines.
To enter a worktable select the entry field from the spreadsheet and with the right button click onto the field. This will reveal the cell menu.
Select Worktable from this menu with the left mouse button to show the worktable field.
A shortcut key to call up a worktable is the F8 key. For more information see Using Worktables.
Terminology
Throughout this section the following terms are used:
•Cell: A location on the spreadsheet containing either a dollar amount or a label.
•Row: A horizontal line of cells in the spreadsheet. Each row in the work area of the spreadsheet starts with a category name, or the label for a total, and then follows with the monthly dollar amounts for that category or total.
•Column: A vertical column of cells in the spreadsheet.
Protected Cells
Certain rows and columns within the spreadsheet are computer calculated and cannot be modified directly by the user:
•Total: The Total column shows the total amount for each category for the period in use.
•Total Inflow: The Total Income row displays the monthly totals for all the income Categories.
•Total Outflow: This row displays the monthly totals for all expense Categories.
•Surplus: The total expenses are automatically subtracted from the total income and displayed in this row. The left-hand end total of this row is the profit or loss for the period.
•Balance: The opening balance is displayed in the left side end of this row. The monthly balance is then projected along the rest of the row.
