Budgeting
You can build a budget structure from an .xls file, and you know exactly what the import brings across and what it does not.
When a production arrives as a spreadsheet and no template resembles it, the import builds the structure so you are not retyping hundreds of rows.
It creates a **budget structure**. It is not a migration: settings and account details are not imported and have to be built in KOSMA afterwards.
The data must be on the **first sheet**, with a header row, in this column order:
Category, Group, No. and Description are **required**; the rest may be empty.
**The currency must be identical in every row.** The import sets it as the budget's default currency, so a file mixing currencies cannot be imported as-is — split it, or import in one currency and correct the exceptions afterwards.
Open a budget, then **Project ▸ Import Data** and pick the file. The command is available in Budgeting only — it is greyed out in the other modules.
The imported rows are **added to the end of the budget**, inside a new category and group of their own. Nothing already in the budget is touched or overwritten, so importing into a budget that already has content is safe.
Cancelling closes the dialog without changing anything, and a completed import is a **single undo step** — one ⌘Z takes the whole thing back out if the file turns out to be wrong.
**Formulas are not imported — only their results.** A spreadsheet where quantities were derived from a shooting schedule arrives as fixed numbers with the reasoning gone.
So budget the structure first and then re-establish the relationships in KOSMA, using [variables](/kb/article/what-variables-are) for anything that should move when the schedule moves. Skipping that leaves you with a budget that looks complete and does not respond to change.
Nothing in the details panel comes across — no companies, effects, fringes, supplements, extra costs or taxes. Plan for that: on a large import it is more work than the import saved.
**Account numbers come across exactly as the spreadsheet had them.** The new category and group that hold them are numbered by KOSMA, following the budget's existing sequence.
Decide before going further whether to keep the account numbers or renumber — see [number accounts and groups](/kb/article/number-accounts-and-groups). If the budget will be cost-controlled, the spreadsheet's numbers are often exactly the accounting codes you want to keep, so renumbering would undo the main thing the import gave you.
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