Set up dimensions

Add the departments, regions or cost centres you plan and report by, and connect them to your accounting system.

A dimension is a way to slice your numbers: by department, region, branch or cost centre. Each has members, such as Sales and Operations in a Department dimension. Dimensions let you compare budget and actuals per slice, not just in total.

Departments come first

Departments do double duty: they own budget sheets and they are a dimension.

1. Open Settings › Team & permissions › Departments.
2. Type a name in Add a department and click Add.

Each department becomes a member of the Department dimension automatically. Renaming one renames the member.

Add another dimension

1. Open Dimensions and click Create dimension.
2. Enter a Dimension key (for example region; it cannot change later) and a Display name (Region).
3. Set Required to Yes if every budget line must carry a value.
4. Click Create, then open the dimension and click Add member for each value.

To nest members, such as branches under regions, pick a Parent member. Totals roll up the hierarchy.

Connect your accounting system’s categories

If your accounting system already tracks categories, bring them across instead of retyping them.

1. Open the connection under Integrations and go to Imported dimensions.
2. For each category choose Keep as new, Merge into… an existing dimension, or Ignore, then click Save decisions.
3. Click Review values to match each value to a Kompass member. Unmatched values can be created in one step.

From then on, actuals arrive tagged with the right members.

Get dimensions onto budget lines

• Automatically: assigning a sheet to a department tags all its lines with that department.
• By hand: in Review budget, select lines and use Tag selected to set a dimension value.

Start small. Departments plus one more dimension is enough for most first budgets. You can add more later without re-uploading anything.