Overview

In Accounting Seed, Budgets are organized under dedicated Budget Ledgers, so you can compare planned amounts against actual results in reports. Budget allocations are stored as Financial Cube records, which capture each period's budgeted amount and can be used in native Salesforce reports and the Accounting Seed Financial Reporter. Every org requires at least one Transactional Ledger, but you can create as many Budget Ledgers as you need.

In this article:

• Prerequisites
• Step 1: Create a Budget Ledger
• Step 2: Prepare Your Budget Data for Import
• Step 3: Import Your Budget Data with the Data Import Wizard
• Step 4: Create a List View to Manage Your Budget Cubes
• Step 5: Verify Your Budget
• Making Corrections
• Notes

Prerequisites

Before you begin:

• Accounting Periods for the budget year must already be created in Accounting Seed. See Create Accounting Periods.
• You'll need administrator access, or the AS Full Admin permission set.
• If you plan to use the recommended budget import template, you'll need the desktop version of Microsoft Excel on Windows. The template's macro does not run in Excel Online or Excel for Mac.

Step 1: Create a Budget Ledger

If you don't already have a Budget Ledger, create one:

1. Navigate to Accounting Home > Setup > Ledgers.
2. Click New.
3. Enter the Ledger Name, for example, 2026 Budget.
4. From the Type dropdown list, select Budget.
5. Click Save.

Step 2: Prepare Your Budget Data for Import

Use the provided Excel import template to prepare your budget financial cubes for import.

1. Open the Import Templates using the Data Loader App and Data Import Wizard article, scroll to the Transactional Import Templates section, and click Budgets (For PC Only) to download the template.

   Note: This template includes a macro that generates your budget line rows. When you open the file, you may need to click Enable Content to allow the macro to run.

2. On the "1. Guidance" sheet, review the walkthrough. The Guidance sheet's own step numbers are shown in parentheses so you can cross-reference the two.
3. (Guidance sheet steps 1 and 2) Complete Step 1 above if you haven't already created your Budget Ledger.
4. (Guidance sheet step 3) On Sheet 2, enter your Budget Ledger's exact name in Column A. Confirm the same name appears in the Ledger columns on both Sheet 3 and Sheet 4 once Sheet 4 is populated in a later step. If this name doesn't match exactly, your import will fail, or your budget cubes won't link to the correct Ledger.
5. (Guidance sheet steps 4 and 5) On Sheet 3, enter your budget details:
   1. Ledger: confirm this matches the name you used on Sheet 2.
   2. Cube Type: must be "Period" - do not change this.
   3. Year: enter the budget year.
   4. GL Account: replace the sample GL Account names with your exact GL Account names, or use their Salesforce IDs.
   5. Enter your budget amounts for each GL Account and Accounting Period.

      Important: Enter both Debit and Credit amounts as positive values. Do not use negative numbers to represent credits.

   6. Optional: enter GL Variables values if your org uses them.
6. (Guidance sheet step 6) On Sheet 4, click the Data menu, then click Refresh All. Your entered data should populate Sheet 4. If it doesn't, confirm the Ledger name on Sheet 2 exactly matches Sheet 3, then try again.
7. (Guidance sheet step 7) In Column F (Opening Balance), enter the formula for all periods except Period 1: the prior period's Opening Balance plus the prior period's Amount, referencing the row above (for example, =SUM(F3:G3) in the row for Period 2). This carries the prior period's closing balance forward as the current period's Opening Balance. Leave Period 1 blank, since there's no prior period to reference.

   Note: If you refresh the query on Sheet 4, formulas in this column are overwritten and must be re-entered.

   
8. (Guidance sheet step 9) Save a copy of the file, then delete Sheets 1 through 3. On Sheet 4, remove any extra rows, such as the instructions row and any examples.
9. Save the file as a .csv file.

Step 3: Import Your Budget Data with the Data Import Wizard

Once your .csv file is ready, import it into the Financial Cube object in Salesforce using these steps:

1. From Setup, enter Data Import Wizard in the Quick Find box, then select Data Import Wizard.
2. Click Launch Wizard.
3. On the left, under 'What kind of data are you importing?' click the Custom objects tab.
4. Under Custom Objects, scroll down and select Financial Cube.
5. To add new budget data, in the center under 'What do you want to do?' click Add new records. This column has a long list of questions with a picklist where you will choose either the Name if that column in your csv has the name of the record (like "2027-02" or "Alpha Communications Ledger") or Salesforce.com ID if you have the SF ID from the period record's URL. See the screenshot below as an example:
   1. 
   2. Skip Match by (since you're adding new records).
   3. Enter "Which User field in your file designates record owners?" if you need to. If you do not, you'll be set as the owner of these records and you can change ownership later, if needed.
   4. For the question "Which Accounting Period field in your file do you want to match against to set the Accounting Period lookup field?", choose
      1. Accounting Period Name if you have the name like "2027-02" or "2028-11" (as in the screenshot above)
      2. Or select Salesforce.com ID if you have the SF ID from the period record's URL.
   5. If you use GL Variables:
      1. select the appropriate choice for the question "Which Accounting Variable field in your file do you want to match against to set the GL Variable 1 lookup field?", either Accounting Variable Name or Salesforce.com ID.
      2. Similarly make the choice for the other 3 GL Variable questions, if you have them in your CSV file.
      3. If you don't use GL Variables, don't select anything in the picklists.
   6. For the question "Which General Ledger Account field in your file do you want to match against to set the GL Account lookup field?" , select General Ledger Account Name or Salesforce.com ID, based on how you have the values in your CSV's GL Account column.
   7. For the question "Which Ledger field in your file do you want to match against to set the Ledger lookup field?" , choose Ledger Name or Salesforce.com ID.
   8. Skip the question "Which Financial Cube field in your file do you want to match against to set the Source Cube lookup field?".
   9. Skip the Trigger workflow rules and processes? checkbox.
6. On the right column "Where is your data located?" drag and drop the .CSV file into the designated area or upload it.
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7. Click the Next button at bottom right.
8. On the next page Edit Field Mapping: Financial Cubes, review how the Wizard has auto-mapped your columns (listed in the CSV Header column) to various fields (in the Mapped Salesforce Object column). If the auto-mapping was incorrect, click the Change button on the left and select the correct mapping. Example values from your file are shown to the right.
   1. 
9. Once reviewed, click the Next button at bottom right.
10. The Wizard shows a summary of what is going to be imported:
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11. Click the Start Import button at bottom right. A popup confirms that the import has been picked up; click OK:
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12. If the number of rows being imported is small you're navigated to the Bulk Data Load Jobs: if the import completes successfully, the Records Processed will show the number of rows from your CSV and Records Failed will show 0.  If there's a lot of data to import, Salesforce sends you an an email with details of the import status.
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13. If there are failures, click the View Result link below and review the errors shown. Fix the data in your file and then restart the Wizard.

You can also use the Data Loader app for larger files. For general guidance on the Data Import Wizard, see Salesforce's Data Import Wizard documentation.

Step 4: Create a List View to Manage Your Budget Cubes

1. In the App Launcher, enter Cube, then select Financial Cubes.
2. Click the All list view.
3. Click the gear icon for the list view controls, then select Clone.
4. Enter a name (like Budget), choose who can see the list view, then click Save.
5. Click the list view filter icon and add:
   1. Cube Type equals Period
   2. Ledger equals your Budget Ledger name

Step 5: Verify Your Budget

Run a P&L vs Budget report to confirm your amounts imported correctly. If you find an incorrect amount, see Making Corrections below.

Making Corrections

If you need to correct an amount, go to the Financial Cubes Budget list view you created, find the record, and edit it directly.

Notes

• Both a Debit and Credit balance are uploaded as a positive value.
• The Budget Financial Cube Type is always Period.
• The Opening Balance field represents the prior period's closing balance.
• The Amount field represents your budgeted amount for that particular Financial Cube.
• The Year to Date field is a calculation of Opening Balance + Amount.
• The variables that define any given cube are: Accounting Period, GL Account, GL Accounting Variable 1, GL Accounting Variable 2, GL Accounting Variable 3, GL Accounting Variable 4, and Ledger.

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