The budgeting process in Cashbook Platinum is based on the completion of various sections that build on each other to produce a complete budget for the farming enterprise. These sections basically follow the structure of the Chart of Accounts, for example:

Enterprises

Farm Inc/O'heads

• Farm Income: this section includes sundry farm income that is not part of any enterprise. For example, diesel fuel rebate, rental income from a farm dwelling.   
• Farm Overheads are costs associated with production and running the business. These costs can include fixed operating costs (eg. permanent wages, building repairs, insurance, rates and licenses, administration, utilities ...) and variable operating costs (eg. fuel, fertiliser, repairs, freight, seed costs, casual wages ... ), non-cash costs (depreciation, farm management allowance), finance costs (eg. interest, bank and govt finance fees, land lease and net share farm costs, management allowances (if a salary is not drawn) and taxation.

Capital

• Capital receipts is income not generated by the sales of good or service in the the ordinary course of business. Thus, they do not arise from the operating activities of a business. They include income from the sale of fixed assets or share in the business or issuance of debt.
• Capital expense is funds used to obtain physical assets that are to be used for productive purposes for at least one year. A capital expenditure is recorded as an asset, rather that charging it immediately to expense. The fixed asset is then charged to expense over the useful life of the asset, using depreciation. Eg. buildings, computer equipment, machinery, office equipment, vehicles and software. 

Proprietor Funds

Off Farm Income/Expenses

• Off Farm Income is any amount earned, derived or received that was not produced by an activity of the farm enterprise eg. contracting (harvesting or fencing), off farm employment, agistment income, interest payments, rental income, share income.
• Off Farm Expenses eg. expenses relating to a rental investment, share expenses.

GST

• GST Paid - these amounts are calculated automatically by the system based on amounts entered in a particular month against expense/payment type accounts (with a non-zero GST category) in other sections of the budget.
• GST Received - these amounts are calculated automatically by the system based on amounts entered in a particular month against income/receipt type accounts (with a non-zero GST category) in other sections of the budget.
• GST Net BAS - this line is calculated automatically by taking the GST Paid from the GST Received for the relevant BAS period.
• As an example, if your BAS period is quarterly and total GST Received for the quarter ended June = $5,000 and the total GST Paid for the same period = $3,000, the GST Net BAS amount will be $2,000 in July (i.e. the month after the end of the quarter). A net GST payable amount will display as a positive number whereas a net GST refundable amount will display as a negative number.
• GST Net BAS opening balance - this is the net GST owing at the beginning of the budget period and should be entered manually into the “Open Bal.” column. An opening balance payable balance is entered as a negative amount whereas an opening balance refund balance is entered as a positive amount.
• Note that the monthly running balance of GST owing is shown in the Liabilities section of the Net Worth report - GST Clearing Account.

Bank Accounts

• Enter all bank accounts
• Note: the entry types are either Balancing or Fixed/Manual. There can only be one balancing account and the balance of this account is calculated automatically by the system as the result of all receipts and payment movement in the cashflow area of the budget.
• Enter opening balances on this screen. Note that overdraft or loan balances are entered as negative amounts.
• Note that the automatic interest calculation function only applies to the balancing account. You will need to manually calculate and enter interest on other accounts if required.

Net Worth

• It is laid out in 3 parts: Assets, Banks/Funding Lines (which may be in credit or overdrawn) and Liabilities.
• There are 4 types of entry line in this budget section:
  1. Manual entry - entering values into the opening balance or any month column will automatically fill the subsequent columns with the same amount but does not alter previous month columns.
  2. Worksheet - provides for Month/Year (if 'show all months' is selected), Description and amount. Double-click the required month/year cell to pop up the worksheet. Click OK to save the worksheet.
  3. Balance Sheet Link - these are automatically calculated by the system based on budget figures entered for any accounts that have been linked to a balance sheet account. For example, if the 'Purchase of Plant' other expense account on the chart has been linked to the 'Plant & Equipment' asset account, any amounts entered to the purchase of plant account will automatically 'trickle down' to add to the opening balance of the Plant & Equipment asset account.
  4. Stock on Hand - these amounts automatically 'trickle down' from the closing stock values in the trading accounts set up in the <Enterprises> section of the budget.