Actuals-to-budget comparison allows you to better understand and plan your future financial forecast. Based on this information, you can then decide to update your budget plan accordingly. You can import or manually add actuals to the model lines in your budget from a spreadsheet and then compare your actual results against your budget plan.
📝 Before you begin, set up your actuals in an Excel sheet according to the SIP Excel template. To download a copy of the template, go to either the Actuals > Summary or the Actuals > Details tab and click Add transactions > Download template. To import actuals, use the Model template sheet.
The Model template sheet in the template contains the following fields:
Description
Can include all notes that can be included in the Description column in the Actuals > Details tab.
This field is not mandatory.
Account
An account must already exist in your budget for actuals transactions to be automatically mapped. If an account doesn’t exist, you must manually map the transaction.
This field is mandatory.
Dimensions
Dimension values help to improve the automatic mapping of actuals transactions to the model lines in your budget. The dimension values must already exist in your budget, or a mapping won’t be found and you’ll need to manually map the transaction.
This field is not mandatory.
Dates
The date columns are automatically mapped to the relevant dates.
This field is mandatory.
Books
Actuals can be imported from reporting books defined in Intacct, such as ACCRUAL, CASH, and consolidation books, as well as user-defined reporting books.
This field is not mandatory.
Comments
Map the comments from your actuals transactions to the comments field of your model line.
This field is not mandatory.
To import actuals:
1. From either the Actuals > Summary or the Actuals > Details tab, click Add transactions > Import from Excel. The wizard opens.
2. Drag your Excel file to the upload window, or Click here to browse for one and select the file.
📝 As mentioned earlier, the Excel file should be set up according to the Model template sheet in the sample template.
3. In the Select step, complete the following information and click Next:
Select which Excel sheet you would like to import from the dropdown.
From the What type of template is this? dropdown, select either Model transactions or Model balances, depending on which type of transaction you want to import.
The Overwrite existing data option overwrites actuals on a monthly basis. All current actuals in the SIP from the months that are imported are deleted and replaced with the newly imported actuals. For example, if you select Overwrite existing data and import actuals from Feb-22, all of your current actuals that exist in SIP from Feb-22 are deleted and replaced with the imported ones.
4. In the Setup step, select your header row and column for the transaction description, and click Next.
5. In the Data - Columns step, select the data columns you want to import, click on each dropdown to map to the correct column type, and click Next.
📝 You must select and map the account column and at least one of the date columns. The other columns are optional.
To select a date column, select Amount from the dropdown, and then select the month from the calendar.
Some information about mapping dimensions...
When actuals are imported with dimensions, the following conditions must be met or you need to manually select and map the actuals to be imported to the budget (in the following step).
Dimensions values must be identical: When importing dimensions with your actuals, the dimension values in your budget and the Excel sheet must be identical. For example, if a Location dimension value is USA in your budget, then it must be USA in the Excel sheet and not US.
Dimension mapping must be consistent: Actuals data must contain an exact combination of mapped dimension values that you have in your budget.
For example, let’s say you have an account for Office rent (6380) that’s mapped to multiple budget lines in SIP by location and then by department. When you import actuals for this account, the transactions that have matching values are automatically mapped. If there is no match then you have to manually select the row and map in the following step.
6. From the Data - Rows step, select the lines of actuals you want to import. Each row is automatically mapped to the Model line and Type according to the mapping in your current budget. For accounts that are not already mapped in the budget, select the Model line and Type from the dropdowns. In addition, you can update any lines that were automatically mapped.
7. From the Preview screen, preview the data for import. Click <Back to make any relevant changes.
📝 The Unit Type column represents the unit of measure of your data, such as an area measurement in square footage, a currency that includes USD or EUR, a number, decimal number, or percentage.
8. Click Import.