Setting Up Budgets in Pulse Dashboard¶
Adapted from How To Setup Budgets for Macola® in PULSE Dashboard on leahyconsulting.com.
Pulse Dashboard works with two kinds of budgets, and they come from two different places:
| Budget type | Used by | Where it is defined |
|---|---|---|
| Financial budget | Executive and Financial modules | The Macola® General Ledger |
| Sales budget | Sales & Marketing module | Pulse Dashboard itself |
Financial budgets (Executive and Financial modules)¶
Financial budget figures are defined in the Macola® G/L, account by account — on the Budget tab of each Account Card in Macola® ES and Macola 10, or in Budget Maintenance in Progression.
For the Executive module’s headline graphs, identify a G/L account for each of these three measures (using one, two or all three is optional):
- Booked orders — new orders entered into Macola® for the month
- Shipments — typically what would be invoiced for the month
- Backlog — the typical open orders at any point in the month
Tip
No suitable account? If Macola® has no account for one of these measures, add one — a statistical account works well, since it stores data without appearing on any financial statement.
Once budget amounts have been entered in Macola® for booked orders, invoiced orders and open orders for each month, register the accounts and the budget scenario/revision in Pulse Dashboard at the top of the screen under Executive menu → Budgets. They will then appear on the Customer Order Summary and the Executive module graphs.
The Financial module works the same way — budgets come from the Macola® Account Card or Budget Maintenance — but each report selects its own account(s) and budget scenario in that report’s setup, opened with the red wrench icon.
Sales budgets (Sales & Marketing module)¶
Sales budgets are maintained inside Pulse Dashboard, and you can keep several of them. There are three ways to build one:
- Copy last year’s actual values, then adjust up or down
- Enter the budget manually
- Import the budget from Excel — click Create Excel Template first, fill in the generated worksheet, and import it back (the template’s format is required)
Tip
Template rules. Many users copy and paste values from their own in-house worksheet into the generated template. Don’t delete or change any of the template’s columns, and paste values only — no Excel formulas. Period 1 follows the company fiscal calendar defined in Pulse Dashboard Setup: if your fiscal year begins in July, Period 1 is July.
An annual budget is entered by month, and can be defined at any of these levels:
- Customer
- Salesperson
- Item
- Customer + Item
- Customer + Item + Alternate address
- Item + Location
- Salesperson + Item
Each month’s figure can be expressed as sales dollars, sales units, average selling price or margin. Mid-year (or for a following year) you can adjust a budget by a dollar amount or a percentage.
Using budgets on reports¶
On each report in the Sales & Marketing module you may select up to two budget scenarios in that report’s setup — open it with the red wrench icon. Once a budget and scenario/revision are attached to a report, the Column Chooser offers many additional budget-related columns for it.
Tip
Need a hand? The PULSE support team is happy to help — call (513) 723-8095 or email [email protected].