Create your first budget
A budget in Hub is a plan laid out period by period. You enter what you expect to happen, and Hub fills in what actually happened alongside it — so the gap between the two is always visible without you maintaining a spreadsheet. Budgets live under **Insights → Budgets** in the sidebar. ## Start from a template Click **New budget**. The dialog asks for a starting point: - **Blank budget** — one empty line, shape everything yourself. - **Revenue and costs** — a simple profit plan with revenue, direct costs and operating expenses. - **Department plan** — the usual operating cost lines for one team. - **Headcount plan** — permanent staff, contractors and open roles, counted in people rather than money. - **Cash budget** — plan income and payments by cash date, with an opening balance. - **Income statement** — an accrual-basis plan with revenue, cost of sales, operating expenses, other income and tax, grouped by statement section. - **Balance sheet** — closing-period balances for assets, liabilities and equity. Templates only decide the lines you start with. Nothing is locked in — rename, add and remove lines freely afterwards. ## Statement types Cash budgets, income statements and balance sheets each behave differently: | Type | How plan figures work | Actuals source | |---|---|---| | **Cash** | Monthly totals summed across periods | Any connected source (records, Xero cash, bank ledger, Stripe, etc.) | | **Income statement** | Accrual amounts; revenue is positive, costs and tax are negative in totals | Reviewed statement actuals only (enter each figure with an evidence reference) | | **Balance sheet** | Closing-period balances, not summed across months | Reviewed statement actuals only | Every line on a financial statement budget must be assigned to a **statement section** (for example, Revenue, Cost of sales, or Assets). Hub shows a warning and a quick-link to the line settings if any section is missing. Mixing statement types in a master budget is not supported. A cash budget cannot consolidate with an income statement budget. ## Set the range and unit Below the template you choose four things: | Field | What it does | |---|---| | **Unit type** | Currency, or a count/metric such as people or leads | | **Currency / Unit label** | `GBP`, or the thing you're counting | | **Frequency** | Monthly, quarterly or yearly columns | | **Starts** and **Number of periods** | Where the plan begins and how long it runs (1–60) | The summary line at the bottom of the dialog tells you exactly what you're about to create — for example *12 monthly periods from Aug 2026*. The unit belongs to the **budget**, not to individual lines. A budget is either about money or about a quantity, never a mix. If you want to plan headcount and salary cost, make two budgets and roll them up later. ## Fill in the plan The grid has one row per line and one column per period. Click any cell and type — figures save on their own, and the status under the budget name shows **Saved** once they're stored. There's no save button to hunt for. A few things worth knowing about the grid: - **Lines are one level deep.** Rows group into categories, but a line never nests inside another line. This keeps totals honest and exports readable. - **Line names are read-only in the grid.** Click the line name (or its pencil) to open its settings in the right-hand rail, where you can rename it, choose where its actuals come from, reorder it or remove it. - **Add line** at the bottom of the grid adds a row; each category header also has its own **Add line to…** button. - **Missing plan values are distinct from zero.** A cell with no value entered shows as missing. Totals that include missing values are labelled **Partial plan** — hover or tap the figure for details. A zero entered explicitly is treated as a confirmed zero with a visible variance. ## Group and compact the view Above the grid, **Group by** re-sorts the rows without changing the plan: - **Category** — your own groupings, the default - **Direct / Indirect** — cost type - **Fixed / Variable** — cost behaviour - **Cost centre** — whichever team or centre you've tagged each line with For income statement and balance sheet budgets, lines are grouped by their **statement section** instead of custom categories. Set cost type, behaviour and cost centre per line in the rail. **Expanded** and **Compact** next to it control row height for long plans. **Display → Variance shown** in the left rail toggles the variance column on and off. It's a personal preference, remembered per budget, so turning it off won't change anything for colleagues. ## Opening cash Cash budgets and income statement budgets can carry an opening cash balance. Click the **Budget cash brought forward** or **Budget cash carried forward** total in the grid to open the opening cash dialog. Choose one of three sources: - **Manual amount** — enter a figure directly. - **Verified bank balances** — use a dated, evidence-backed bank snapshot captured in Cash flow. The snapshot uses the closing balance on the day before the budget's first period. - **Previous budget's planned closing cash** — carry forward the planned closing balance from an adjacent cash budget in the same currency and period frequency. The opening cash source is saved as a snapshot at the time you select it. Subsequent changes to bank evidence or the source budget do not update it automatically. ## Payments tab (cash budgets) Functional cash budgets include a **Payments** tab. It shows the same payments register used in **Banking → Cash flow → Payments** — changes made here are reflected there, and vice versa. ### Automatic cash-budget plan from payments You can link a cash payment or income line to the shared payments register so that its confirmed payment totals drive the plan figures automatically: 1. Open the **Payments** tab on a functional cash budget. 2. Under **Automatic cash-budget plan**, choose the **cash payment line** you want to drive automatically. Only lines with a cash plan basis and a payment/income role are eligible. 3. Review the period preview — it shows the approved baseline alongside the current payment plan for each period. 4. Select **Enable automatic plan**. Once enabled: - The plan cells for that line are read-only in the grid. A tooltip explains that plan values come from the Payments tab. - Confirmed payment totals for each period replace the manual plan. Unknown amounts produce an incomplete period. - Known undated amounts use their planning month and show an undated warning. - Settlement never reduces planned amounts. - The approved baseline is preserved when you duplicate or copy the budget. To stop automatic planning, remove the plan source from the line settings. > Expense/accrual and gross-payroll plan lines do not support this source. Convert payroll into its actual cash schedule before assigning payments. ## Check your work The tab strip carries a small **budget health** chip on the right. It reads *Healthy* when nothing needs attention, or tells you how many items to review — an unnamed line, an invalid plan range, a formula referring to a driver that no longer exists, or a statement line missing its section. Click it for the list, and use **Open line** on any item to jump straight to the line that needs fixing. ## Review tab The **Review** tab provides a 14-day cash view using bank evidence and dated commitments: - The table shows dated cash events (money in and out) and the running balance over the next 14 days. - A **spending scenario** lets you add a proposed payment and see its impact on the low-point cash position alongside a downside estimate. - An **expense reduction estimate** lets you model the cash effect of cutting a budget line by a percentage. - A **decision log** records evidence-backed decisions with an owner and a follow-up date. The Review tab reads from Cash flow — verified bank evidence, confirmed payments and a chosen reserve are all required for a complete view. Missing evidence is shown as provisional. ## Share it - **Export CSV** in the toolbar downloads the plan, actuals and variance. - **Duplicate** creates an unpinned copy with the same setup and figures — handy as a base for next year. - **Pin to dashboard** puts the budget on the workspace dashboard, and starts capturing a daily snapshot so the Trend tab has history to draw. ## Next steps Once the plan is in, point your lines at real data so actuals fill themselves in — see *Track actuals automatically*.