Next year's budget built from this year's figures
Starting from what we actually spent, what will next year cost, and what fees and occupancy do we need?
Upload this year's accounts and a payroll. Ask Orrery projects each line with the April pay rise, employer costs, food and energy inflation and your fee plans, and shows the margin with a downside case.
When people use it: From January, for the year starting in April.
How it works, step by step
Upload accounts and payroll
Use the most recent 6 to 12 months.
Build the budget
Ask for the central and downside cases together; lenders and owners want both.
Check against the market
The typical home's budget in your council, as a cross check.
What you upload
- This year's management accounts
- A recent payroll
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “Build a budget for April 2027 to March 2028 for Example House from my profit and loss and September payroll: apply the April 2027 pay rise, food and energy inflation, and fee rises of 6% private and 4% council. Show the margin and a downside case.”
- “What private fee rise keeps our EBITDARM margin where it is now?”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
The central case gives an EBITDARM of about £969k, a 22.5% margin. The downside gives about £815k, a 19.4% margin. EBITDARM is profit before rent, interest, depreciation and group charges.
| £k a year | Base run-rate | Central 2027/28 | Downside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Income | 4,120 | 4,311 | 4,201 |
| Costs | 3,230 | 3,342 | 3,386 |
| EBITDARM | 890 | 969 | 815 |
| Margin | 21.6% | 22.5% | 19.4% |
Where the figures come from
- Income and pay use your September 2026 P&L and payroll, annualised.
- Food, energy and other costs use the last 12 months of your P&L.
Central case
- Pay: I used the Low Pay Commission central projection of £13.18, up 3.7% on £12.71. This is not confirmed until the Budget on 28 October 2026. Employer National Insurance rises by 15% of the extra pay.
- Fees: private fees rise 6% and council fees 4%, from 1 April 2027.
- Food and energy: food rises 3.5% and energy 4%. These are Orrery's Kent central assumptions.
Downside case
- Pay rises 5.0% (£13.34).
- Council fees rise 3%.
- Occupancy is 2 points lower.
- Food rises 5% and energy 10%.
The 6% private fee rise drives the improvement, adding about £142k. Each 1 point on private fees is worth about £24k. Each 1 point on pay costs about £28k including National Insurance, pension and agency.
Risks to check
- September pay is about 3.5% below your April to September average. If September is low, that adds about £79k a year before National Insurance.
- Kent gave no general 2026/27 uplift to older people's homes, so 4% for 2027/28 is not assured.
Not finished
- Monthly phasing: I built the budget for the year as a whole, not month by month.
- Pay rises person by person: I applied one percentage to all pay.
- Flat lines: I held Funded Nursing Care, continuing healthcare, family top ups and other costs flat.
- Costs below EBITDARM: rent, interest and group charges are not in your P&L.
To get any of these, ask for one at a time, for example "phase this budget by month" or "run the April 2027 pay rise person by person". The second one uses the pay-rise-cost guide.
These are projections on stated assumptions, not forecasts. Please take professional advice before relying on them for lending or investment decisions.
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Pay is the line that moves most; get the April rise right first.
- A budget is assumptions: Ask Orrery lists each one so you can change it.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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