Financial Skills: Budgeting

Course Overview

Budgeting is an essential part of managing your business and this course explains why. It will enable you to eradicate errors when compiling budgets and thereby avoid financial difficulties; present budgets with confidence and accuracy and analyse variances so that corrective action can be taken

Audience

Those people, both managers and staff, who wish to get the most out of budgets, whether it be during preparation, review or end use

Skills Gained

• More effective handling of your annual budget cycle
• Identification of the key drivers behind sales, costs and margins
• Steps needed to compile a budget for your department or organisation
• Tools to analyse variances and identify corrective actions

Course Outline

• The need to plan
• Basic concepts explained
• Budgeting as part of the business plan
• The budgeting process
• Structuring the budgets
• The key budgetary statements
• Compiling the budgets - avoiding the pitfalls
• Using the 'Zero-based' approach
• Interaction between the statements
• Reviewing the budgets
• Using Variance Analysis
• Identifying corrective action
• Flexing the budget
• Updating the budget - alternative approaches
• Presenting the budget
• Action planning

Financial Skills: Budgeting / SB