Overview - Balance Sheet Projection
Before preparing the Balance Sheet Projection, you need to import the
Chart of Accounts and
link the Profit and Loss Accounts to the Balance Sheet Accounts. Once complete, the accounts will appear in the Balance Sheet Projection and you can commence preparing the projections.
If you have multiple divisions, you need to firstly create your
Divisions so that you can enter the projections against the relevant Division. It is possible to use Divisions at a Profit and Loss level and not at the Balance Sheet level. For example, you may have 1 Xero file and allocate various profit and loss accounts to specific divisions, but report the balance sheet at the entity level. If this is the case, you do not need to assign the balance sheet accounts to a division, meaning the balance sheet will be setup at the "All Divisions" level.
A screen shot of the Projections is below and the various functions include;
- Opening; The projections report a 12 month period and the Opening refers to the Opening Balance. The first time you prepare the projections, you will need to import the opening balances. Simply click on "Import Actuals" and import the month that you would like to use as your commencement month.
- Use Actuals; If "Use Actuals" is ticked, it will show the actual results that have been imported, instead of the budgets. This allows you to project the Balance Sheet for the year based on actual results to date and budgets for the remainder of the year. The budgets will also be re-calculated based on the actual results including Trade Debtors, Trade Creditors, GST, PAYGW etc. This will not clear the original budgets. If you want to view the original budgets simply remove the "Use Actuals" tick.
- Import Actuals; You can import actual results from Xero or via Excel/CSV.
- Lock Periods; The padlock next to the month allows you to lock and unlock periods.
- Expand/Collapse; Expand or collapse the account headings as required. Refer the screenshot below for the 3 types of account associations;
- P/L link; shows the Profit and Loss accounts that have been linked to the Balance Sheet account.
- Payments; shows the Payments that have been linked to the Balance Sheet Account based on the Terms specified under Chart of Accounts.
- Sub Accounts; These are the projections that have been entered against a balance sheet account and appear in 'green',
- Sub Accounts; You can add a projection against a balance sheet account by adding a sub account which is the green "paper" icon that appears next to the account. In the example below, there is a sub account that has been added against Plant & Equipment (New Equipment). The sub accounts will not appear in the reports.
- Asterix; If an asterix appears next to an account, it means the value has been derived (eg calculated as a % of another account) and you will not be able to manually adjust the value. You can hover over the account to reveal more information.
- Entering Values; There are various ways to enter the values including a/ use the Copy Across feature by double clicking on the value to copy it into the future, b/simply enter the values manually or c/ double click on the account to enter the value as a % of another account. You can also manually update the actual results.
- Rolling Forecast; You can change the start month at any time to view the next 12 months. If actuals are showing, it will also re-forecast the balance sheet based on the Actual Results to date.