Feature Synopsis
Sales Budgets can be entered directly into the screen into cells for the Budget Levels you have defined. If the Budget Levels are SalesPerson, Customer and Item you expand the SalesPerson and it shows Customers and click Budget to show Items and then enter Budget Item Sales.
Doing this in volume can be tedious so you can use Budget Bulk Entry which Export and Import and XLSX file. Inside the Spreadsheet you can use formula or even links to other spreadsheets and these will import as numeric values
Budget Detail Entry
Sales Budgets can be entered into BI4Cloud by choosing the Sales Budget option in Cool Stuff.
- Select the Budget Year
- Confirm Setup - Level 2 (Customer or Customer Group) and Level 3 (Item or Item Group)
- Click on the Salesperson expander '>'
- Against each Budget Level 2 (Customer or Customer Group) click Budgets
Manual Data entry
A data entry screen is then displayed and budgets can be keyed manually or edited.
This method is suitable for smaller budgets or tweaking bigger budgets but can be time consuming for large datasets.
Bulk Entry - Import/Export
We provide a more streamlined bulk budget entry facility for bulk export / import is provided and is accessed using the Export and Import buttons from the main budget screen. But don't press it just yet . . .
This Bulk Budget entry will generate a spreadsheet with ALL budget level elements
- SalesPerson X Customer X Item
and this can be very big and so to reduce the the spreadsheet size the elements of a budget level can be filtered in each level. These steps should be followed to create a Bulk Budget
1. Choose the Budget Year and Select the Budget Levels
- Each time you start a new budget year ensure all the Options are set exactly as you require them. The Default values may need reflect what you did in previous years.
- The budget structure for each year can be different so ensure the budget levels required for you budget are correct. Select the level of detail you require at each level by pressing the Pencil Edit Icon
- The Monthly/Weekly Budget can be chosen on this screen
- Budget Levels can only be changed if budget values for that year do not exist
2. Filter each Budget Level
Now select the Export button and you will see the following screen. This dialogue indicate how big the spreadsheet will be and there are limits on size.
You can adjust the size of the spreadsheet by filtering out element you are not intending to budget for. Select the level to filter using the magnifying glass
Edit the elements by selecting and deselecting
Then go back and press Export again and see the Statistics and iterate until you reduce the spreadsheet to a manageable size.
Note the Stats section indicating the number of elements in each level and the estimated spreadsheet size. The Bulk spreadsheet that will be created will contain the ENTIRE BUDGET for the year and so it is important to filter out elements of the budget level that you do not need.
You can filter each level either by pressing the level Name (blue) or by using the COG icon
Each filter will show the selected elements, if a budget exists for an element it will be show in green and if that element is de-selected the budget will be deleted.
You can use the Filter Icon on big lists to select the elements you want and use the Select All to select or deselect and then filter again. See the animation below. Complete the filtering and press save.
Ensure you filter each Budget level and then press the Export button.
The Bulk spreadsheet will be created. This process may take some time depending upon the level of detail in the budget levels and the number of elements in each level.
The resultant spreadsheet will look like below and contain a sheet for every Level1 element (eg SalesPerson) and a row for each Level 2 and Level 3 ( eg. Customer / Item ) that is included in the above filtered lists. These are show in yellow below.
Enter budget in the spreadsheet in the green area and do not edit the red first column as it contain key information. The text in white background is the names of the elements in each level and this is for human use only as the actual data import uses the key information in the red area. So if you resort or re-organise the sheet you must include the red data area. If you wish to use formulas to create your budget you will need to use the Excel Paste Value into the green data entry area before you import. When complete use the Import button to Import the spreadsheet.
The Bulk Budget entry spreadsheet completely replaces the budget for the selected year so take caution with it's use.
You exit the Bulk Budget screen clicking on the exit icon above the COG and will return to the Sales Budget Screen. You must press Save&Exit from that screen so the budgets are updated into the rports database.