Budgets

A budget is your plan for what you expect to spend and earn over a period. Geekonomics lets you set per-account budgets and then compare them to what actually happened.

Creating a Budget

Go to Budgets in the sidebar and click + New Budget. Pick:

• Name — "FY2026 Plan", "Q2 Operating Budget", whatever.
• Fiscal year.
• Period type — annual, quarterly, or monthly. This determines the columns in the matrix.

Period type	Columns
Annual	One column for the year
Quarterly	Q1 through Q4
Monthly	Jan through Dec

Save the shell and you'll get a matrix editor: GL accounts down the rows, periods across the columns. Type budget amounts in each cell. Setting an amount to zero removes the line.

You can budget any revenue or expense GL account. Asset, liability, and equity accounts aren't budgeted (they're standing balances, not period flows).

Variance Report

Once the matrix is filled in, click Variance. Pick a period (e.g. 2026-Q1) and Geekonomics shows three columns for each account: Budget, Actual, Variance.

Actuals are computed from your journal lines over the period's date range, so they include every transaction, invoice, bill, payroll posting, and adjusting entry that hit each account. Variance is shown as a dollar amount and a percentage.

A variance is favorable when revenue meets or exceeds budget, or when expenses come in at or below budget. Unfavorable means you overspent or undersold.

Workflow

The realistic loop is: set the budget once at the start of the fiscal year, check the variance report monthly, and adjust your forecast or your spending based on what you see. You can edit the matrix any time — there's no period-locking on budgets themselves, just on the books they compare against.

What's next

Reports — for actuals at a higher level.