---
title: "Managing your budgets"
slug: "managing-your-budgets"
description: "Create, update and delete budgets, download existing ones and import your budget from a template file to compare planned spend with actual spend over time."
updated: 2026-10-27T14:17:31Z
published: 2026-10-27T14:17:31Z
canonical: "payhawk.com/managing-your-budgets"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://payhawk.com/help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Managing your budgets

Budgets and forecasts play a crucial role in helping support the planning process within an organization and subsequently tracking the execution of that plan in the form of an actual vs. budget or actual vs. forecast.

The budget or forecast added to Payhawk is intended to be on a profit-and-loss basis rather than cash flow. You can also continue to add additional forecasts as you go through the fiscal year - for example, end of Q1, Q2 and Q3 re-forecasts.

## Creating budgets

To create your budget:

1. In the [Payhawk Web Portal](https://portal.payhawk.com), open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Budgets**.
2. Select the **New** > **New fiscal** **year** option from the drop-down button.
3. In the dialog that opens, select the expense fields ([budget dimensions](/help/overview-of-budgets)) that will apply to your budget.

The fields you select here will be reflected in the template file and they'll have their dedicated column in it. Also, all future forecasts will have these budget dimensions preselected and included in their template files.
4. Under **Start of your fiscal year**, choose the month and year for your budget to be calculated.
5. Click on the link with the template file to download it.
6. Go to the **Downloads** folder of your device, open the file, and fill in the needed data.
7. When ready, go back to the Payhawk portal and, under **Upload file**, upload the template file with the filled budget data.
8. Click on **Submit**.

![The New fiscal year budget dialog in the Budgets app with budget dimensions, the fiscal year start, the template link and the upload area.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-01_20261009_ai.png)

## Updating budgets

You can edit the name, budget owners, and dimensions of existing budgets directly in Payhawk.

> [!TIP]
> If a budget dimension originally included multiple values, you will be able to update them. However, if a budget dimension originally included a single value, you will be able to update it, but will not be able to add more.

To edit your budget:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Budgets** and select the desired one.
2. Click on its three-dot menu and select **Edit**.

![A budget opened in the Budgets app with its three-dot menu showing Edit.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-02_20261009_ai.png)
3. In the dialog that opens, update any of the data as required:
  - Under **Budget name**, rename the budget.
  - Under **Budgets owner(s)**, select the desired employees.
  - Under **Budget amount**, choose whether the expenses will count against this budget with their net or gross amount.
  - Under **Dimensions**, update the dimension value for budgets with single-value dimensions, or the values for budgets with multiple-value dimensions.

![The Edit budget panel with the budget name, budget owners, Net or Gross budget amount and dimensions.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-03_20261009_ai.png)

## Deleting budgets

Deleting a budget will delete all forecast for the fiscal year:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Budgets**. Click on the fiscal year drop-down menu and select **Manage fiscal years**.
2. In the panel that opens, click on the trash icon next to the fiscal year you want to delete.
3. Next, click on **Delete** to confirm your choice.

![The Manage fiscal years panel with the Delete fiscal year confirmation dialog.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-04_20261009_ai.png)

## Downloading existing budgets

> [!TIP]
> Downloading an existing budget will retrieve both its predicted and actual spend.

To download an existing budget:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Budgets**.
2. Select the desired budget and click on **Download**.

![The Budgets app list of budgets with the Download button in the top-right corner.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-05_20261009_ai.png)

## Breakdown of budgets

You can break down your budgets by dimension, depending on the defined budget dimensions:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Budgets** and select the desired budget or forecast.
2. Navigate to the **Spent by** section.
3. From the drop-down menu, choose the desired dimension to sort the information accordingly.

![A budget with the Spent by drop-down open, listing the dimensions to break the spend down by.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-06_20261009_ai.png)

## The template file

The template file contains three sheets:

- The **Instructions** sheet includes guidelines on what budget information you are expected to provide, what the allowed values are, and what their expected format is.
- The **Budgets** sheet is where your actual budget data will reside. The information it contains will depend on the budget dimensions you have preselected before downloading the template file - apart from the common budget information, a column will be included for each budget dimension.
- The **FX rates** sheet is where your FX rates data will reside, which will be used to convert child budget amounts to the parent budget currency when budgets in a hierarchy use different currencies. This sheet contains the forecasted currency conversions for each fiscal month and covers all currency pairs you’ve specified in the **Budgets** sheet.

The common budget information you'll need to provide includes:

- Budget name
- Budget owners
- Budget amount (defaults to **Net** if left blank)
- Currency
- Amounts for the budgeted periods
- Budget hierarchy (if any)
- FX rate (in case of a multi-currency budget hierarchy)

Each row in the template file represents a single budget. To add multiple values for the same dimension within a budget, you have two options:

- Duplicate the row, ensuring all data remains the same except for the dimension value.
- Create a new row, keeping the same budget name and entering only the new dimension value, leaving the other columns empty.

![Budget template rows with budget name, owner, employee, amount type, currency and monthly amounts.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-07_20261009_ai.png)

To use budget hierarchies with different currencies, leave the limits of the parent budget empty and they will be calculated based on the provided FX rates.

![Budget template rows for a parent, child and grandchild budget hierarchy in different currencies.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/navigation-redesign-didi_20261009_ai/managing-your-budgets-08_20261009_ai.png)

Payhawk will automatically merge the data based on the budget name, associating all rows with the same budget. If merging fails due to incorrectly entered or missing information, the system will generate an error message for you to resolve.

## Useful resources

- [Managing budgets on the group level](/help/managing-budgets-on-a-group-level)