Effective Budgeting

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.