Budget, Forecast and Scenario Planning

Last updated: May 11, 2026

Bring your budget into Nume, run scenarios against it, and keep every version safe

Nume lets you bring your financial budget into the app so you can analyse, compare, and plan against it in conversation. Once a budget is loaded, you'll see it in a structured side panel covering your P&L, Balance Sheet, and an automatically-derived Cash Flow view. From there you can model "what if" scenarios, promote them to your base budget, and roll back to any earlier version.

1. How do I get a budget into Nume?

There are two ways:

Upload an existing Excel or CSV file. Drop your budget file into the chat (.xlsx, .xls, and .csv are supported — Google Sheets exports work fine as long as you export them as .xlsx). Nume reads any layout: it detects which sheet is the P&L, which is the Balance Sheet, parses your month columns (whether they're written as Jan-26, Jan 2026, 2026-01, 01/2026, or just full month names), and ignores blank or "Full Year Total" columns sitting between them.
Build a new budget from scratch. If you don't have an existing file, just ask Nume to build one. It will look at your chart of accounts, design 15–30 budget lines covering the full P&L and Balance Sheet, populate the numbers month by month, and validate that the Balance Sheet balances each period. When you're happy with it, click "↑ Set as Budget" to make it the official budget.

2. What does Nume do with my budget file once it's uploaded?

During import, Nume:

Maps each row to the right line type (Revenue, COGS, OpEx, etc.) and matches it to your GL accounts from your accounting system where possible.
Validates the arithmetic — checks that subtotals add up and that Assets = Liabilities + Equity.
Reads the formulas behind each line to figure out what drives it (e.g. "Units × Price", "% of Revenue", "Headcount × Salary"). This becomes the foundation for scenario planning later.

After import, Nume confirms the import succeeded and gives a short summary: file name, number of lines, number of months, how many lines couldn't be matched to a GL account, and how many formula insights were captured. It won't automatically run a variance analysis — just ask if you'd like one.

3. What gets imported, and what doesn't?

Imported:

P&L lines: Revenue, Cost of Sales, Operating Expenses, D&A, Interest, Tax, and subtotals (Gross Profit, EBITDA, Net Profit).
Balance Sheet lines: Current and Non-Current Assets, Current and Non-Current Liabilities, Equity, and subtotals (Total Assets, Total Liabilities, Total Equity).

Skipped on purpose:

Cash Flow Statement lines. Nume derives Cash Flow automatically from the P&L and Balance Sheet using the indirect method (Net Profit + D&A − ∆AR − ∆Inventory + ∆AP, plus investing and financing activities from Balance Sheet movements). Importing a separate cash flow sheet would just duplicate the data.

4. Why do my costs show as positive numbers? They were negatives in my Excel file.

This is by design. Nume stores all expenses and liabilities as positive numbers, regardless of how they appear in your source file. So if your Excel had costs as -5,000, you'll see them as 5,000 in the budget panel. The math (Revenue − Costs = Gross Profit) is unchanged — only the display convention is normalised.

5. Some of my budget lines don't have a GL account attached. Did something go wrong?

No — this is normal. Many budget lines are more aggregate than individual GL accounts (e.g. "Staff Costs" might map to several GL codes), and some budget lines may not correspond to any GL account at all. Unmatched lines are still fully imported and counted in subtotals — they just don't have an account code attached. The post-import summary tells you how many lines were unmatched.

For GL matching to work at all, you need to be connected to your accounting system. Xero connects via OAuth (one-time auth flow, tokens refresh automatically) and E-conomic connects via API token. Without a connection, budgets can still be imported, but lines won't be GL-mapped.

6. What are scenarios?

Scenarios let you model "what if" situations without touching the base budget.

The base budget stays untouched.
A scenario only stores the differences from the base (e.g. "in July, Product Revenue is 110k instead of 100k"). Anything not overridden uses the base budget value.
Nume follows a disciplined CFO process when building scenarios: it understands the drivers first, traces knock-on effects (e.g. revenue ↑ → COGS ↑ → headcount ↑ → AR ↑), states its assumptions, then applies the changes.
You can promote a scenario to become the new base budget at any time.

When viewing a scenario, cells that have been overridden are colour-coded:

Green = favourable change (revenue up, costs down, assets up, liabilities down)
Red = unfavourable change (revenue down, costs up, assets down, liabilities up)
Gray = neutral / no direction

7. What's the difference between Base Budget and a scenario?

Base Budget is the source of truth — the budget your company is operating against.
Scenarios are sandboxes for "what if" analysis. They don't change the base unless you explicitly promote them.

8. How do I update my budget after importing it?

Three options:

Re-import the corrected file. A fresh import replaces the current budget, and the old one is saved to history.
Use a scenario to model the change, then click "↑ Set as Budget" to promote it.
Ask Nume to make a specific change — it can apply overrides directly via the scenario system.

9. My scenario disappeared after I promoted it — where did it go?

That's expected. Promoting a scenario merges its overrides into the base budget and then deletes the scenario itself (since it's now part of the base). The previous base budget is saved to history, so if you want to undo the promotion, just open the History Panel and revert.

10. I deleted or overwrote my budget by accident. Can I get the old version back?

Yes. Every time something significant happens to your budget — an import, a scenario promotion, a manual revert — Nume takes a snapshot. Open the History Panel in the budget side panel, find the version you want, and click Revert (you'll be asked to confirm). Up to 20 prior versions are kept automatically.

Each history entry shows the type of change (import, promote, revert), a description, a timestamp, and the line/month counts.

11. My Balance Sheet doesn't balance and I'm seeing a validation warning. What does that mean?

During import, Nume checks the accounting equation (Assets = Liabilities + Equity) and all subtotals, with a tolerance of ±0.5 units. If something is off, you'll see a validation warning — but the import is not blocked. You can still work with the budget. Common causes:

The source Excel file already doesn't balance (rounding, missing equity line, retained earnings not computed).
A line was mapped to the wrong line type during import. You can re-import or ask Nume to fix it.

12. My months look shifted — January's numbers are showing under February. What's going on?

This used to happen when a budget had a blank column, a "Notes" column, or a "Full Year Total" column sitting between the row labels and the first month. It's now handled correctly. If you're still seeing a shift, please share the file with our support team via the widget in the bottom right corner so we can take a look.

13. I uploaded my budget but Nume says it doesn't see one.

Your budget file is saved to your session. If you started a fresh session, Nume has fresh memory but the budget file itself is still on the server. Try this:

Refresh the page — the budget panel should populate from your saved budget.
If the panel is empty, the import didn't complete. Try re-uploading the file.

14. My import failed. What should I do?

The most common causes are:

Network or connectivity issue. If the error mentions something like ENOTFOUND or your machine couldn't reach our service, it's usually a VPN, firewall, or internet drop. Retry the upload.
Accounting system not connected. GL account matching needs a connected Xero or E-conomic account. You can still import without it (lines just won't be GL-matched), but if you expected matching to happen, check Settings → Integrations and reconnect if needed.
Unsupported file format. Only .xlsx, .xls, and .csv work. Export Google Sheets as .xlsx first.

If you've checked all of the above and the import still fails, please share the file with support so we can investigate.

15. How big a budget can I import?

There's no strict size limit, but very large files (hundreds of lines across many years) take longer to process — the mapping step can run for up to 10 minutes in the biggest cases. Most monthly budgets (15–60 lines × 12–36 months) import in well under a minute.

16. Can I export my budget back to Excel?

Yes. Ask Nume to generate an Excel model from your current budget. It will produce a file with real formulas (not hardcoded values).

17. Can Nume build a PowerPoint summary of my budget?

Yes — just ask. Nume will generate a deck with charts, key metrics, and commentary.

18. How do I rename a scenario?

Double-click the scenario tab and type the new name.

19. What does "Set as Budget" actually do?

It promotes the scenario you're currently viewing to be the new base budget. The previous base is saved to history, so you can always revert if you change your mind.

20. Where do I find the budget panel?

The budget panel is a collapsible side panel that opens when a budget is loaded. You can also find the budget icon permanently situated in both the collapsible left side pane and with a small icon next to the Ask Nume chat bar.

Once inside the budget, at the top you'll find a statement toggle:

P&L — always shown when a budget is loaded.
Balance Sheet — shown only if your imported budget includes Balance Sheet lines.
Cash Flow — shown alongside Balance Sheet, derived automatically.

Below the toggle are your scenario tabs. Base Budget is always first; any scenarios you create appear in the order they were built. The panel auto-refreshes when Nume finishes a response, so new scenarios appear without needing a page reload.