Better Budgeting

Budgeting consumes a massive amount of time and resources. It's a stressful and busy time. Are there ways to improve the effectiveness of the investment made in the budget process? Can we make better budgeting decisions that lead to higher performance? There are options both within and beyond traditional budgeting. Each company should consider these options and decide which could improve its budgeting process.

Budgeting has many benefits that organizations can continue to capture and build upon. This course starts by outlining the benefits and challenges of budgeting. Throughout the course, I'll provide tips and alternative budget systems that can mitigate these challenges and enhance those benefits.

Next, you'll learn—or revisit—some foundational concepts for budgeting. I'll build on these concepts to show the pros and cons of later budgeting tips, ideas, and alternatives. The master budget is a collection of many sub-budgets. I'll show how these fit together to form an aligned plan to achieve a company's strategic goals.

There's a method to the madness when different types of assumptions and calculations are layered into the budget. However, the process is not entirely sequential—it abounds with iterative loops. The third section walks step-by-step through the budget formation process. The purpose and role of the budget are best explained in the context of strategic planning. We'll explore which analyses can be done throughout the year to take pressure off the very busy budgeting season.

Some lessons cover the nuts and bolts of budget reporting and budgeting tools. In the final section of the course, I'll explore a series of budgeting alternatives. We'll look at rolling forecasts, zero-based budgeting, activity-based budgeting, and many others. We'll also examine operating without a budget. Each alternative has pros and cons, which I'll list. Each lesson in this section gives an overview of the budgeting alternative to help you decide whether to explore it further.

Even if you don't fully adopt these alternatives, you can still find ideas to improve your budgeting process. The course concludes by revisiting budgeting process challenges and how the tips and alternatives presented can address or mitigate those challenges.

The course author has served as CFO, SVP of Finance, or Director of Operations for companies ranging from small startups to organizations with $3 billion in assets and hundreds of employees. He has led, facilitated, or participated in the budgeting process many times.