I am using Budget Builder and when I add a new category to the category tab it wipes my budget clean and/or throws off amounts. Any ideas on what could be off?
This is a good catch, @rmcail28. I’m afraid when I built that sheet, I hadn’t anticipated adding categories mid-process. You are correct that manually entered data will then no longer align with the intended categories. This is a common problem with templates that mix query driven data and manually entered data.
I’m afraid the only solution is to reset the sheet, stabilize/finalize the list of categories, then start adding your manual data.
Sorry about this.
2 posts were split to a new topic: Restoring the Categories + Budget Sheet
@randy - Old topic here, but relevant since I continue to use your Budget Builder to plan my budget for the upcoming year. I have separate Budget Builder worksheets for each year and then use a Vlookup with Match (could use Xlookup now) to copy to the Categories worksheet.
Like @rmcail28, I have changed some of my Category names or Groups or added new ones over time and it creates issues in the Budget Planning Workbook, specifically in the Baseline Override Column AX. I recently started my 2025 budget and ran into this issue again and decided to do something about it this year.
I resolved this issue by creating a separate section with Dropdowns for the Categories you want a have a Baseline Overrride and you can then enter the overrides there…
I then do an Xlookup to copy this data into Column AX.
This now allows you to change Category names or Groups or add/remove Categories without messing up the Baseline Overrides for the Categories you didn’t change. Of course, if you want a Baseline Override for any of the new or changed Categories, you’ll need select that Category from the pull-down in column BL and enter the Baseline in column BO.
The updated worksheet is here.
Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.
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Wow, thanks for sharing this workaround!
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Thank you. I was a lot of manual work to ensure my annual budgets were correct whenever I added/deleted/renamed Categories or Category Group. Now it is much easier.
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