What is a business expense budget? How to make a Business Expense Budget in Excel or Google Sheets? Download our sample template now and start making your own budget. Adjust the budget according to the needs of your business and track expenses to stay on top of your spending.
A Business Expense Budget in Excel is a financial planning tool that allows businesses to project and track their anticipated expenses over a specific period, typically on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. It helps businesses gain better control over their finances, allocate resources wisely, and make informed decisions about spending. Excel is a popular choice for creating and maintaining business expense budgets because of its flexibility and powerful calculation capabilities.
Creating a Business Expense Budget in Excel or Google Sheets involves setting up a spreadsheet to track and manage your business expenses. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create one:
- Open Excel or Google Sheets:
- Open your preferred spreadsheet software, either Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
- Set Up Your Spreadsheet:
- In Excel: Start with a blank workbook or worksheet.
- In Google Sheets: Create a new blank spreadsheet.
- Create Expense Categories:
- Identify the expense categories relevant to your business. Common categories include rent, utilities, salaries, marketing, supplies, travel, insurance, and office expenses. List these categories in the first column (Column A) of your spreadsheet.
- Define the Time Frame:
- Decide on the time frame for your budget. It could be monthly, quarterly, or annually. Label the columns in the next row with the time periods (e.g., January, February, March, etc., if it's a monthly budget).
- Enter Budgeted Amounts:
- In the rows below each expense category, enter the budgeted amounts for each period based on your estimates or historical data. For example, under the "Rent" category, enter the monthly rent expense for each month in your budget.
- Add a Total Row:
- At the bottom of your expense categories, create a row for totals. Use the SUM function to calculate the total budgeted amount for each period. For example, in Excel, you can enter "=SUM(B2:B13)" to sum the monthly expenses for January through December.
- Enter Actual Expenses:
- As the month or period progresses, track the actual expenses incurred in each category. Enter these actual expenses in the columns corresponding to the appropriate period. You can create a separate column for each month, quarter, or year.
- Calculate Variances:
- In a new column next to your actual expenses, calculate the variances between the budgeted amounts and actual expenses for each category and period. For example, subtract the actual expenses from the budgeted amounts to calculate the variance.
- Review and Adjust:
- Regularly review your business expense budget to monitor your financial performance. Make adjustments as needed to stay on track with your financial goals.
By following these steps, you can create a functional and effective Business Expense Budget in Excel or Google Sheets. This budget will help you manage your business expenses, track variances, and make informed financial decisions.
Whether you manage the finances at your work or at home, adequate communication is essential. Accurately keeping track of financial data is not only critical for running the day-to-day operations of your small business, but it is also important when seeking funds from investors or lenders to grow your business to the next level. Having correct and accurate information exchange enables and ensures you, you are able to make the right decisions. For those working in Finance, it's important to be accurate and always double-check every detail.
Feel free to download our basic or advanced finance templates, they are intuitive and in several kinds of formats, such as PDF, WORD, PPT, XLS (Excel includes formulas and can calculate sums automatically), etc.
Using this Business Expense Budget Excel financial template guarantees that you will save time, cost, and effort and enables you to reach the next level of success in your project, education, work, and business!
Download this professional Business Expense Budget Excel template that you can also open in Google sheets!
Looking for more? Our collection of financial documents, templates, forms, and spreadsheets includes templates designed specifically for small business owners, private individuals, or Finance Staff. Find financial projections to calculate your startup expenses, payroll costs, sales forecast, cash flow, income statement, balance sheet, break-even analysis, financial ratios, cost of goods sold, amortization, and depreciation for your company. These financial templates also work with OpenOffice and Google Spreadsheets, so if you are operating your business on a very tight budget, hopefully, you'll be able to make these financial templates work for you as well.