Business Budget & 12-Month Forecast
Enter your expected monthly income and categorised expenses and receive a calculated, analysed 12-month operating budget for your Australian business — not a blank template. Every category is totalled across the year, monthly and annual figures are shown side by side, and your surplus or deficit is computed and checked line by line. Unlike a document template, this uses YOUR real numbers to produce a working forecast in AUD, with GST-aware notes, a plain-English read on where the money goes, and three practical moves to lift your bottom line. This is a profit-and-loss-style operating budget (income less expenses = surplus each month); if what you actually need is the timing of cash through the bank account with opening and closing balances, choose our Cash Flow Forecast instead. Ideal for sole traders and small companies planning the year, pricing a bank or grant application, or sanity-checking the numbers before a big commitment.
A budget and a cash flow forecast get confused constantly, and buying the wrong one wastes both the money and the afternoon. The Business Budget & 12-Month Forecast is the profit-and-loss-style one: income less expenses, a surplus or deficit for every month and for the full year, and a running cash position across the twelve months. It tells you whether the shape of the business works — what you expect to earn, what it costs to keep the doors open, what is left. It does not model when money actually lands in the bank account, with opening and closing balances and the fortnight a big invoice finally clears; our Cash Flow Forecast is the product built for that. A$29 one-off, built from the figures you supply, back in around five minutes.
The expense ranking is the part people act on
Every income and expense category is totalled monthly and annually, and the arithmetic is shown rather than hidden, so any total traces back to the lines that produced it. Past that table, the report breaks your expenses down as a share of total spend and ranks the biggest levers. A couple of lines usually carry more weight than the ten you have been fussing over, and seeing them ordered is often what changes a decision.
From that ranking come plain-English commentary on what the numbers mean and three practical moves to improve the result, reasoned from your inputs and nothing else. There is no connection to Xero, MYOB or your bank — you type the figures in, so if you want the budget to reflect your real accounts, pull the totals out of your accounting software yourself. The report checks its own arithmetic line by line, but it cannot tell you that a number you entered was wrong.
GST status changes what gets flagged
The intake asks whether you are GST registered, so the report can put GST and ATO-aware notes against the lines they affect — the registration threshold, BAS, PAYG — instead of stranding them in a footnote you have to translate. Income goes in before GST, which keeps the operating picture clean.
Treat those notes as general information and a prompt to check with someone, not tax or financial advice. Nothing here is lodged, reviewed or certified, and it is not an accountant-prepared or audited statement. It is a working document built from your own numbers, and it should go past your accountant or registered tax agent before it underwrites a large commitment. Two free AI revisions are included, and the finished budget arrives as an on-page report plus a Markdown download you can print to PDF or paste into Word.
What you get
- A 12-month operating budget table with every income and expense category totalled monthly and annually
- Net surplus or deficit calculated for each month and for the full year, with running cash position
- Expense breakdown showing each category as a share of total spend, biggest levers ranked
- Plain-English commentary on what the numbers mean plus three practical moves to improve the result
- GST and ATO-aware notes flagged against the relevant lines (registration threshold, BAS, PAYG)
- 2 free AI revisions included
Turnaround: ~5 minutes. Delivery: On-page report + Markdown download (print to PDF / paste to Word).
Frequently asked questions
My income swings hard between seasons — will one monthly figure hold up?
The required input is an expected monthly income figure, so the base budget is built on that. If your trade peaks and troughs, the two included revisions are the place to fix it: ask for the monthly income assumptions to be reworked toward your realistic strong and quiet months. That is a rework of the same budget, not a different modelling product.
I only have rough numbers. Is that enough to start?
Yes. The intake wants your expected monthly income before GST and your fixed monthly expenses, which most operators can give from memory or a bank statement. The calculations will be sound; whether the conclusions are depends entirely on what you typed in, so treat a rough budget as a first draft rather than a settled plan.
Would a bank or a grant assessor accept this?
It works as a planning document that shows how you have thought through the year, and it is written to be readable by someone outside your business. It is not an accountant-prepared or audited financial statement, and a lender or grant body may want one of those as well. Check what the specific application asks for before relying on this alone.
What do the two revisions actually cover?
Two further AI passes over your budget — correcting a mis-keyed expense line, changing an income assumption, adding a category you forgot, or re-running the year from a different start month. They are not a human accountant reviewing your position, and they do not extend to work outside this budget.