Overview
DoorLoop's new budgeting feature streamlines financial management for property managers, providing an integrated section for setting up and monitoring budgets. Accessible through the Accounting tab, this tool allows managers to efficiently plan finances, track expenses, and project revenues for individual properties or entire portfolios.
Note: The Budgeting feature is not available for Starter Plans. Please consider upgrading to the Pro or Premium plans to use this feature.
The Steps
Create a Budget
To create a new budget, click Accounting > Budgeting on the main menu.
Then click the + New Budget at the top right corner of the page.
You'll now be on the New Budget page. Here, you'll need to set a few parameters to get started.
Budget Type - Choice between Profit & Loss or Balance Sheet.
Budget By - Select whether you'd like to create a budget for a specific property or a specific portfolio.
Property/Portfolio - this field will change depending on whether you select property or portfolio in the previous field.
Starting Month - Choose when your budget will begin (usually the first month of your company's fiscal year).
Fiscal Year - Choose the year for which you would like to create a budget.
Once you've entered the above parameters, your budget table will appear below, and you're ready to begin entering your data. Enter a Budget Name for this new budget report.
Select Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly to decide the breakdown of your budget period.
Click on any input value to begin entering data.
Click Save to finish.
This is the minimum you need to create a budget. We'll cover more in-depth data inputs in the next sections.
Tip: You can change the budget period from Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly on the fly without having to make any changes or reenter data. It will automatically adjust the data you have entered.
Enter Budget Data
In addition to simply clicking an input value and entering numbers, there are several advanced methods of entering data in DoorLoop's budgeting feature, enabling you to create budgets as efficiently as possible.
When clicking into a cell in the Total column, the distribute icon will appear at the right of the cell. Clicking on the icon will evenly distribute the entered amount to the rest of the columns.
When clicking on a cell in any other column, the copy icon will appear at the right of the cell. Clicking on the icon will copy over the entered amount to all columns to the right.
Selecting the checkboxes on the left hand side will allow you to use the bulk actions above the table. You can either click them individually or use the topmost box to select them all.
Click Fill Totals to enter an amount into the Total column of all the selected rows, and evenly distribute that value across the rest of the columns, in just 3 clicks.
Click Clear Data to clear any data entered in all of the selected rows.
Use Reference Data for Your Budget
You can use previously created budgets or actual financial data as a reference when creating or editing a new budget. This is extremely useful in setting a baseline and enabling maximal accuracy in your projections.
Click the Reference Data field, just below the Budget Name field, to view the reference data dropdown.
Note: If you do not have any previously created budgets or actual data for the selected property or portfolio, then the reference data dropdown will be empty.
Select actuals from a specific year or a previously created budget.
The reference data will be presented below each input, for you to easily use as a baseline while editing your budget.
Once you have selected reference data to be presented, a few new features will become available.
When using actual financials from your account as reference data, select the the Accounting Method to specify if you would like the data to be presented using the Cash or Accrual method.
Click on the Show reference data toggle to seamlessly show/hide the presented reference data.
Selecting the checkboxes on the left hand side will allow you to use the Fill With Reference Data action above the table. You can either click them individually or use the topmost box to select them all.
Click Fill With Reference Data to fill the selected rows with the reference data presented below each field. (You will still be able to use this action if the Show reference data toggle is off).
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