Introduction
One of Saturation's powerful features is the ability to actualize your budget using the Actuals Log. This tool allows you to quickly import your receipts and invoices, streamline your budget tracking process, and view your actuals against your budget in real-time. Here's how to use it.
Navigate to the Actuals Log
Inside your project, you'll find your Actuals Log by clicking on the $ icon on the left nav (second icon in the list).
To see the Actuals Log for a particular line item or account, click the expand icon in the "Actuals" column for that item in the budget:
Adding Actuals to the Log
Actuals can be added to the log in two ways:
Actualize a transaction in the project
Manually add entries
Manual entries
To add an entry to the Actuals Log, click on the purple "+" icon at the bottom of the table or right mouse click on an existing row and select "Insert". Then fill in the columns:
Transaction Name: A brief name or description of the expense. This helps with identification and tracking.
Amount: Enter the amount of the transaction. This will be used to compare against your budgeted amounts.
Date: When did this expense occur? Enter the date here.
Type: What type of expense is this? Choose from options like 'Time card', 'Credit card', 'Invoice', etc.
Attachments: Upload any relevant receipts, invoices, or files
Status: Indicate the status of the expense. Options include 'Paid', 'Unpaid', etc.
Pay ID: This could contain the payment instrument used for this expense. Example: "American Express - 1234"
Notes: Add relevant notes for this expense
Category: Assign the expense to a line item or account in the budget.
Review Your Budget
Once the actuals are assigned a category in the budget, they'll automatically reflect in your budget under the "Actual" column, giving you real-time overview of your financials. You can use the "Variance" column to understand the difference between your estimates and actuals.
Split Actuals
There are times when you may have one large expense that is made up of several smaller expenses. For example, a payroll expense to a talent agency for several cast members and an agency fee. There might be a need to track those smaller expenses individually against different line items or accounts in your budget but still keep it as one expense. To do so, you'll want to use Saturation's Split Actuals feature.
Creating a Split Actual
There are several ways to create a split actual:
Right mouse click on an existing actual in the Actuals Log and select "Split Actual". This will convert the actual into a split actual. If you want to create a new split actual from scratch, simply add a new empty actual first before splitting it.
Select multiple existing actuals by holding down the shift button while you select, right mouse click and select "Group Actuals".
With option 1, this will open up the Split Actual modal where you can enter multiple line items to track individual expenses and assign a category to each line item.
With option 2, the existing actuals will be populated as line items in the Split Actual modal. You can assign a category to each line item if it hasn't been assigned already.
