Budgeting
You can freeze a baseline, watch the budget drift from it, re-baseline when a version is agreed, and lock it so nobody moves it by accident.
Two columns turn a budget into a record of how far it has moved:
- **Original** — each row's total, frozen at a moment you choose. - **Variance** — the difference between now and then, shown in red when the budget is over its baseline.
Both are **off by default**. Enable them from the toolbox Columns section — see [choose and arrange grid columns](/kb/article/choose-and-arrange-grid-columns).
That default is why many users never discover the feature exists.
Original is stored on the leaf rows; groups and categories show the sum of theirs, so variance reads correctly at every level of the tree.
Only the rows that have actually moved carry a variance. Everything else shows its Original equal to its Total and no difference at all — which is what makes the few real movements findable in a budget of hundreds of lines.
Both are shown in the reporting currency and re-express when it changes — see [set currencies and the reporting currency](/kb/article/set-currencies-and-the-reporting-currency). A rate correction therefore moves Original and the current total together, so it does not read as an overrun.
A row whose total has drifted offers a refresh, which resets that row's Original to its current value. The column header carries a refresh-all for the whole budget.
Re-baseline when a version is **agreed**, not when it is convenient — the point of the baseline is that it is the thing everyone signed off. Re-baselining to silence a red number destroys exactly the information the column exists to carry.
The header also carries a lock. Locking greys out both the per-row and the refresh-all, so an approved baseline cannot be moved by accident.
**Lock the baseline the moment a budget is approved.** That is the step that turns Original from a convenience into a record.
**What it does not do.** This compares a budget against **its own past**, not against another budget. There is no side-by-side view of two budgets — and a [copied budget](/kb/article/duplicate-a-budget-for-comparison) inherits the original's frozen baseline rather than starting fresh.
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