Budget vs actuals

The Budget page holds your full P&L plan — GL-coded line items grouped into income, cost of sales, and operating expenses — with a planned figure per month and actuals captured as each month closes. Plutus derives what's "actual" from the entries themselves, so nothing drifts stale.

• Budget vs actual — the grid: every account by month, plan and actual side by side, with year totals and net profit computed live.
• Variance — where you beat or missed the plan, ranked by the biggest misses first.
• Forecast — elapsed months show actuals; remaining months show the plan, with the method behind each figure shown explicitly, and a projected net profit with a tax estimate.
• Drill-down — pick any account for its monthly trend, notes, and the payroll or sales-pipeline schedule feeding it.

Private vs presentable views

Finance users work in the private view — the real numbers, always. When you need a simpler version for a wider audience, create overrides: a buffer on expenses, a rounded figure on a line, a time-boxed adjustment. The presentable view applies them; the private view never changes, and every override carries a reason, an author, and a full audit history. A quiet indicator in private mode shows how far the presentable view currently differs.

Only owners, admins, and finance users can open the private view or see override reasons — everyone else sees the presentable numbers only.

Connecting an AI assistant

On Settings → Connect AI (MCP) you can mint a personal key that lets an AI assistant (like Claude) read your budget-vs-actual and outstanding invoices, and push data in — actuals, budget lines, invoices, payments, and receipt summaries.

Nothing an assistant pushes lands directly: every write waits in the Budget → Review queue, where you accept it, edit it first, or reject it. Keys can be revoked at any time.