1. Export your budget

To avoid issues, you should always start by exporting your current budget - even if it's blank - to a CSV file. This ensures that the formatting and content of the file is correct and complete.

To export the budget

1. Go to the Reports menu and choose Budgets.
2. Click to open the budget you want to export. 
3. Click Export. Choose CSV. The budget is downloaded as a CSV file to your computer.
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2. Edit your budget

After exporting the CSV file, open it using Microsoft Excel (or your preferred spreadsheet software) and you'll see there are two sections to the budget, the header and the budget items. There are some restrictions to what you can edit.

Budget header

Any changes you make to the fields in the budget header - Name, Description, Period and Export Date - will be ignored, so you shouldn't make any changes to this section of the budget.

Budget items

The budget items section contains the columns and rows of information listing the budget values for each month of the budget. You can type over the amounts that were exported, or use formulas to calculate the amounts. However, some formatting can cause the file to not import successfully into MYOB Essentials, so note the following:

• Adding columns and rows: Don't add new columns or rows to the area highlighted below. If columns or rows are added to this budget editing area, you won't be able to import the file into MYOB Essentials.
    
   
• Column labels (Row 7): You can't change the information that appears on row 7 (the column headers), and you can't add other information to that row either.
  
  
  
• Account Number column: Don't change any of the account numbers, or the order of the account numbers. These must match the accounts list that appears in your budget within MYOB Essentials.
  
   
• Account balances: The only values you may enter in account balance cells are zero, or positive and negative numbers. Blank fields are allowed, but alphabetic characters and special characters are not.
   
• Negative numbers: For account balances with negative values, always use a hyphen, not parenthesis, otherwise the file can't be imported.
  
   
• Decimal numbers: You can enter decimal values in the account balances, but they will be rounded to the nearest dollar once the file is imported.

3. Import the CSV file

When you're done editing the file, you can import it. Note that when you import a CSV file, it will overwrite the amounts that are already recorded in the budget.

To import the budget

1. Go to the Reports menu choose Budgets.
2. Click to open the budget that the CSV file applies to. The budget's period must match the periods included in the CSV file. 
3. Click Import > Import CSV .
    
4. Click Browse and select the CSV file you want to import.
     
5. Click Import & overwrite. Your CSV file is imported into your budget.