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Setting a budget is easy. Sticking to it is the hard part. Pluvel helps with both — set limits for any category, then see at a glance whether you’re on track or overspending.

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Creating a Budget

Go to Finance → Accounting → Budgets and click New Budget. You’ll need to specify:
  1. Name — “Q1 Marketing” or “2025 Operating Budget” — whatever makes sense
  2. Time period — Monthly, quarterly, or annual
  3. Categories — Which expense categories to track
1

Choose your categories

Select which expense categories to include. You can budget for everything or just specific areas like Marketing, Payroll, or Software.
2

Set amounts

Enter the budget amount for each category. You can type exact numbers or use last year’s actuals as a starting point.
3

Set alerts

Optionally, get notified when you hit 75%, 90%, or 100% of a budget. Most people set alerts at 80%.

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Budget Views

Once you have a budget, you’ll see: Summary view — Total budgeted vs. total spent, with a progress bar. Green means under budget, yellow means close, red means over. Category breakdown — Each category with its own progress. Marketing might be at 45% while Payroll is at 90%. Trend view — Spending pace over time. Are you burning through the budget evenly, or did you blow half of it in the first week?

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Tracking Against Budget

Every transaction that gets categorized flows into your budget automatically. Categorize a $500 Facebook ad as Marketing, and your Marketing budget reflects it immediately. That last one — pace — is useful. If you’re halfway through the month and you’ve spent 80% of your budget, you’re ahead of pace (not in a good way).

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Multiple Budgets

You can have as many budgets as you want:
  • A master annual budget for the whole company
  • Departmental budgets (Marketing, Engineering, Operations)
  • Project budgets (Website Redesign, Trade Show)
  • Personal budgets for employees with spending authority
They can overlap. A $500 software purchase can count against both your “Operating Budget” and your “Engineering Budget” if both include the Software category.

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Budget Templates

Don’t want to start from scratch? Use a template:
  • Startup — Heavy on Payroll and Software, light on everything else
  • Professional Services — Contractor-heavy, minimal inventory
  • Retail — Inventory and rent focused
  • Previous Period — Copy last year’s budget and adjust
Or import from a spreadsheet. Upload a CSV with categories and amounts.

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Alerts and Reports

Budget alerts notify you when:
  • You hit a threshold (80%, 100%)
  • You exceed budget
  • Pace indicates you’ll exceed budget before period ends
Budget reports show:
  • Budget vs. Actual for any period
  • Variance analysis (where you over/under spent)
  • Year-over-year budget comparison
Find these in Reports → Budget Reports.

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Tips for Better Budgeting

Be realistic. If you spent 5,000onmarketinglastyear,budgeting5,000 on marketing last year, budgeting 1,000 this year won’t magically make it happen. Start with actuals and adjust. Budget for the unexpected. Add a “Miscellaneous” category with 5-10% of your total. Stuff happens. Review monthly. A budget you set and forget is useless. Check in monthly, see where you’re off, and adjust. Don’t get too granular. 50 budget categories means 50 things to track. Start with 10-15 meaningful categories and expand later if needed.
Budgets only track categorized transactions. If you have a backlog of uncategorized expenses, they won’t appear in your budget until you categorize them.

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Sharing Budgets

If you have team members or an accountant with access:
  • View only — They can see budget status but not change it
  • Edit — They can adjust amounts and categories
  • Owner only — Only the company owner sees budgets
Configure in Settings → Team → Permissions.

Categorization

Transactions need categories to show up in budgets.

Custom reports

Build custom budget vs. actual reports.