The Budget vs. Actuals Report in QuickBooks Online

The Budget vs. Actuals report sets the budget you built in QuickBooks next to what actually happened, account by account, and shows the difference between the two as a variance. It answers a single question: how close did the business come to its plan? Because the report depends on a budget you created, it only exists for a company that has set one up, and it is one of the pieces most easily lost when the books are closed, since the budget itself lives inside QuickBooks.

What the Budget vs. Actuals report shows

For each income and expense account, the report lays out the budgeted amount, the actual amount, and the variance between them, usually with the variance shown as a dollar figure and often as a percentage. You can view it for a whole fiscal year or break it out by month or quarter, so you can see not only whether the annual number was met but where in the year the gaps opened up. A budget in QuickBooks is created for a specific fiscal year, and the report then pulls your real results for that same year and compares the two side by side.

Budgeting is a feature of the higher QuickBooks Online plans. You need to be on Plus or Advanced (at current plan tiers) to create a budget, so a company on a lower plan will not have this report to export at all.

Why an accountant or buyer asks for it

A budget-to-actual comparison is used more in management and board reporting than in a formal audit, but it still matters to anyone reviewing how a business was run. It shows whether spending stayed under control and where results diverged from the plan, which a lender, a board, or a buyer in due diligence reads to judge the quality of the operation behind the numbers. For the owner, it is the written record of what was planned against what happened, and that comparison is easy to lose once the company is gone, because both the budget and the report disappear with it. It pairs naturally with the Profit and Loss, which shows the actual results on their own, and the Profit and Loss by Month, which shows the same actuals as a monthly trend.

How to run and export the Budget vs. Actuals report in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and type "Budget vs. Actuals" into the report search box, then open it.
2. If prompted, choose the budget you want to compare against, then set the report period to the fiscal year the budget covers.
3. Set the "Display columns by" option to Month or Quarter if you want the periods broken out, or leave it on the year for a single comparison.
4. Run the report and check that the variance columns look right for the period.
5. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. Excel keeps the budget, actual, and variance columns easy to work with.

If no budget appears, none has been created in QuickBooks for that year. You can create one under Settings and the Budgeting tool, or export the report only for the years a budget already exists.

Keeping the Budget vs. Actuals report after you cancel

You can include the Budget vs. Actuals report in your Books Backup archive on request, and you can also export it yourself before you cancel. It is worth saving because a cancelled paid QuickBooks Online company goes read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days, and the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and longer in some cases. The budget you set up cannot be rebuilt from the ledger after the company is deleted, so the comparison it feeds is worth capturing while it still exists.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a budget set up to run this report?

Yes. The report compares your actual results to a budget, so without a budget in QuickBooks there is nothing to compare against and the report has no data. Budgeting is available on the Plus and Advanced plans, and a budget is created for a specific fiscal year before the report can show a comparison for it.

How is this different from a regular Profit and Loss?

The Profit and Loss shows your actual income and expenses on their own. Budget vs. Actuals adds two more columns to that picture: the amount you budgeted for each account and the variance between plan and result. It is the Profit and Loss with the plan laid alongside it.

Can I keep the budget itself, not just the comparison?

The exported report captures the budgeted figures next to the actuals, which is the part most people need later. The editable budget object stays inside QuickBooks and is deleted with the company, so exporting the Budget vs. Actuals report for each year is the practical way to preserve what was planned before the account is gone.