How a plan links to a budget – Financing

How a plan links to a budgetFinancingYou know what the linked budget supplies to a plan, and that the link is chosen once and moved only by copying.A financing plan is never free-standing. It is created **against one budget**, and almost everything the plan can do comes from that link. Read this before anything else in the module: a plan whose link you have not thought about will look like it is behaving randomly.What the linked budget supplies| The plan gets | Meaning | | ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Currencies** | the currencies a source can be budgeted in, and the rates that convert them | | **Milestones** | the dates a cash-flow rule can hang off | | **Companies, effects, taxes** | the lists the source detail panels offer | | **Accounts and variables** | what an Amount formula is allowed to reference | | **The comparison total** | the figure the plan is measured against in the rail |None of these are copies. They are read live from the budget, so correcting a currency rate or renaming a company in the budget changes what the plan shows.It can be linked to a cost control set insteadThe link target is a budget **or** a cost control set based on one. The choice changes what the rail compares against: a plan linked to a budget shows **Budget**, a plan linked to a cost control set shows **Forecast**. Everything else behaves the same.That is worth knowing before you create the plan, because it is the difference between measuring your financing against what you planned to spend and against what you now expect to spend.The link is chosen once**Creating the plan is the only place the link is set outright.** There is no control on an existing plan that re-points it at another budget.That is not a dead end, though — **copying the plan is the supported way to move it**. The Copy Financing Plan dialog offers *Link budget and settings values to:*, and the copy is built against whatever you pick — see [relink a plan to another budget](/kb/article/relink-a-plan-to-another-budget).Why a plan and its budget save togetherA plan is stored inside its budget's own file rather than in a file of its own. That is what lets a source formula read a budget account at all. The visible consequence is that saving is per file: saving a plan saves its budget, and the two travel together when the project is shared.When the totals do not agreeThe rail's **Difference** is the comparison total minus the financing total. A plan that looks unfinanced when you know it is funded is usually one of two things: sources whose Amount is blank, or a plan linked to a different budget than the one you are looking at. The Financing Plans Manager shows each plan's *Linked to* — check there first — see [manage financing plans](/kb/article/manage-financing-plans).Markdown