Qb pro 2018 desk: how do you create a budget mid-year preserving ytd actuals. Current instructions refer to gear symbol on tool bar which does not exist?

Hi pnfoster,

It's great to see you back so soon! I can explain what's happening with the article you've found. Since it mentions the Gear icon, it's safe to say it's for QuickBooks Online, which is pretty different than QuickBooks Desktop. You can confirm this by looking at the product tag at the end of the article and on the results page when you type in your keywords into the Community.

When it comes to entering budgets in QuickBooks Desktop, the power is in your hands. The budget form doesn't pull from anything, so you can enter whatever figures you need to start tracking your budget, whether you're starting at the beginning of the year or mid-way through. To begin, go to the Company menu and choose Planning & Budgeting. Clicking Set Up Budgets will get you on your way.

More information about how budgets work in the program is available through the built-in help feature. You can either press F1 on your keyboard as a shortcut to bring this up or go to Help, then QuickBooks Desktop Help. In the window that pops up, click the Help tab, then Search to bring up the search bar. Use keywords such as "budget" or "budgeting" to find the information you need.

Happy budgeting!