Budgeting for non financial managers

Course summary

This one day finance training course is for everyone struggling to put together and manage a budget within a not for profit organisation. It takes a practical, hands on, straightforward approach to budget making and will give invaluable tools and techniques to help you develop and control your budget.


Course outline

This is finance training that focuses on your budget. The training course looks at the elements of a budget, what to understand before you start to plan the budget, different ways of assembling a budget and how to avoid the common pitfalls. We will look at the tools used to manage a budget and help you to understand the paperwork produced and used in your own organisation.
The course covers:

• the definition and purpose of a budget
• common pitfalls in the budgeting process and how to avoid them
• budgeting techniques- incremental budgeting, zero based budgeting
• how to prepare different types of budget - revenue, cost, capital, cash
• practical tips for preparing an effective budget
• phasing/profiling the annual budget
• getting buy-in to the budget
• the budget presentation: what you need to be able to answer
• how to manage the budget
• what to look for when you get your monthly management accounts
• predicting expenditure
• investigating differences from the budget
• avoiding overspend and getting back on track

Who is this course for?

This course is for all budget holders and budget managers in public sector and voluntary organisations including housing associations.


What will this course help me do: learning outcomes?

This training course will help you put together a budget that stands up to external scrutiny - by funders, the board and external regulators. This is finance training to give you confidence as well as skills. You will be able to phase your budget accurately over the year so as to understand the peaks and troughs of income and expenditure and you will be able to manage and control your budget to avoid nasty surprises.