Effective Budgeting

Overview

Course duration: 1 day.

Ideal for new and existing budget holders who want to learn how to take the pain out of managing budgets.

This course gives delegates the skills to manage departmental budgets, monitor divisional costs and apportion department expenses on an appropriate basis.

Is it right for me?

Suitable for budget holders, cost centre managers, and those who manage department or event budgets who wish to acquire first principles or refresh ideas and approaches.

This course deals with so-called management accounting. If you are also interested in financial accounting (Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet analysis etc), then you may want to consider as an alternative, one of the following two day courses that cover both those areas:

For managers: Finance for non-financial Managers

For Office Professionals: Making Sense of Finance

What will I learn?

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Manage budgets within your department, division, cost or profit centre.
• Develop an understanding of the budgeting process.
• Work more productively with colleagues from the finance department.
• Prepare and monitor a budget.
• Appreciate the importance of reducing unnecessary departmental costs and working towards increased corporate profitability.

What will it cover?

Budgeting Preparation

• Budgeting: a famous word but what does it mean? Constructing a definition
• Overview of the budget process (procedures, manuals, timelines)
• Case study: reviewing a simple budget scenario
• Being clear about initial assumptions and limiting factors
• Knowing where to find information that might be needed
• Analysing potential income and expenditure: what events and occurrences do we need to consider? Internal, external, definite and uncertain
• Nature and behaviour of costs
• Charging department expenditure to the correct period - accruals, prepayments and depreciation
• Break-even analysis
• Stock forecasting and how to calculate the minimum quantity needed
• Apportioning overheads

Facing the Actuals

• What are the variances and why are they important?
• The budget is the plan  i.e. understanding the need to proactively work towards budget  and adhere to budget.
• Comparing actuals to budgeted monthly
• Comparing actuals to budgeted year to date
• Understanding the significance of changes in variances
• Flexing the budget 

The Cash Budget

• Why they are needed? Do high profits necessarily mean everything is going well?
• Case study: preparing a cash budget

Presenting the Departmental Budget

• Giving clear information
• Presenting the main variables
• Getting agreement
• Putting it clearly onto paper 

Reporting on the Budget

• Preparing a report
• Providing the information to make decisions

Personal Development

• Action planning - the essential next steps
• Continuous professional development - what next?

Further courses to consider

Introduction to Company Accounts

Testimonial

Itoro Assam, Finance Officer

Roehampton University

I attended the 'Managing Budgets Effectively' course and thought it was extremely enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed Variance Analysis, Forecasting and Reforecasting. The tutor's presentation was also very good and I have since put much of what I learnt to practice in the University.