Add a Manual Entry tab

Owned by Helen Gosper
Last updated: Jan 23, 2024 by Denise McGettigan
3 min read

Available in budget and forecast workbooks, the Manual Entry tab is sometimes referred to as the miscellaneous driver. It is useful for managing key reference data common to different parts of your budget or forecast that you want to use for assumptions. As these assumptions typically change at various times during the budget or forecast period, it is easier to have them in a separate tab, so you don’t have to drill down into your Main tab to find them.

Enter data and use it in formulas to drive budget or forecast values, then when you adjust the data, your changes will flow through to all the driven values. As you progress in the budgeting process and firm up your assumptions, you can adjust that data accordingly, and use the updated data when you switch to forecasting mode. 

For example, if your vehicle quantity and related costs are likely to fluctuate over the year, add a Manual Entry tab to drive the Repairs and Maintenance account on your Main tab. Enter the number of vehicles and the maintenance costs per month, then adjust that data as the number of vehicles and the cost of maintenance and repairs change over the year. The driven values in the Main tab will be updated accordingly.

Depending on how you prefer to work, you can add multiple Manual Entry tabs, one for each assumption, or put all your assumptions on one tab.

Do you need to add a new Manual Entry tab? If there’s already one in the workbook, save time by adding additional rows in that tab or cloning that tab and editing its setup.

  1. Click the Add button next to the Main tab, then enter a name for the tab, select the Manual Entry tab type, and click Add.

  2. In the new tab, enter the data. Click Add New Row to add additional rows. In this example, you add one row for the number of vehicles and another row for the maintenance cost per vehicle:

  3. Use the data in formulas on other tabs to drive budget values. In this example, you enter a formula in the Repairs & Maintenance account row in the Main tab that refers to the data in the new driver tab: