---
title: How to add budgets
description: Budgets are very helpful for financial planning in the church. They let you keep track of the expenses of the individual teams and both the church leadership or the executive board and the individual team leaders always know exactly how…
url: "https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/budgets-reports-and-purposes/how-to-add-budgets/"
updated: "2026-05-26"
category: Finances / Budgets, reports and purposes
---

# How to add budgets

Budgets are very helpful for financial planning in the church. They let you keep track of the expenses of the individual teams and both the church leadership or the executive board and the individual team leaders always know exactly how much budget is still available.

**Note**

Budgets are always linked to cost centers and therefore cannot be added separately.

## 1. Open up cost centers

To create a new budget, navigate to the ***Master Data*** (2) in the ***Finance module*** (1) and select ***Cost Centers*** (3).

![](https://staging.churchtools.academy/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/image-386.png)

## 2. Add budget

Here you can either add a new cost center with a budget (4) or add a budget to an existing cost center (5).

![](https://staging.churchtools.academy/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/image-385.png)

## 3. Make budgets visible

The budgets are then displayed in the ***Finance module*** (1) in the ***Budgets tab*** (2).

![](https://staging.churchtools.academy/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/image-384.png)

In order for the budgets to be viewed by other people, you must link the cost center to which the budget belongs to a group and assign the necessary permissions within the group. We have explained this process on our help page on cost centers.  

> **Important**
> What to do if entries are not deducted from the correct budget?
>
>
>
> 1. First check whether the cost center to which the budget belongs is selected in the **transaction**.
> 2. As a second step, check whether the **account or offset account** specified in the transaction is marked as a ***cash account*** in the ***Master data***. In the case of cost centers, only receipts and expenditures are taken into account, but not transfers, which is why the account used must be marked as a cash account.

#### Read more

- [How to set up an account chart](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/19-how-to-set-up-an-account-chart/)
- [How to add taxes](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/19-how-to-add-taxes/)
- [How to add cost centers](https://staging.churchtools.academy/en/help/churchtools-modules/master-data-finance/19-how-to-add-cost-centers/)