Financing
You can create a financing plan, and you choose its budget link deliberately because it is the only place that choice is made outright.
A financing plan is created against a budget, so there has to be one. Attempting it without gives you **Budget Missing** — *A financing plan, cost control set or cash flow plan can only be created if a budget exists* — and a **Create Budget** button to fix it on the spot.
The chain runs budget → financing plan → cash flow plan. Each step needs the one before it.
From the plan dropdown in the financing toolbar, or from the Financing Plans Manager.
Give it a name you will recognise in a list — *Financing v3*, *Financing after ZDF*. A comment field is there for the fuller story.
**This is the decision that matters.** The *Link budget and settings values to:* list is grouped:
| Group | What it offers | | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | | **Active Budget** | the budget you are working in | | **Cost Control Sets Based on Active Budget** | a cost control set built on it | | **Other Budgets** | any other budget in the project |
The link decides which currencies, milestones, companies, effects, taxes, accounts and variables the plan can use, and what its totals are compared against — **Budget** for a budget, **Forecast** for a cost control set.
Choose carefully. Nothing on an existing plan re-points it; moving a plan later means copying it onto the other budget — see [how a plan links to a budget](/kb/article/how-a-plan-links-to-a-budget).
**No Template** gives you an empty plan. **Example Template** gives you a worked structure to adapt, and any template you have saved appears in the same list. **Load File** takes a template file from disk.
A template only seeds the structure — the link you chose in step 4 still governs — see [save and reuse a financing template](/kb/article/save-and-reuse-a-financing-template).
The plan opens empty apart from what the template supplied. Nothing can be added until it has a country — see [add countries, groups and sources](/kb/article/add-countries-groups-and-sources).
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