Effective Budgeting & Beyond

Budgeting's place in the planning framework

Creating and articulating the organisation’s vision and objectives
Organisational stakeholders and balancing their objectives
The planning horizon
A framework for strategic planning
Tools for strategic analysis
Understanding and managing risk

Budgeting essentials

Linking budgets to strategic objectives
Identifying tactical objectives
Identifying constraints and the limiting budget factor
Assigning responsibility for budget objectives
Making sure objectives are integrated
People and budgets; using budgets to motivate

Practical budgeting

The budget manual
The sales budget
Overhead budgets
Capital expenditure budgeting
Cash budgeting
Preparing the master budget
Business seasonality, trends and budget phasing

Budget implementation

Monitoring financial and other data
Design of budget reports
Four golden rules for good feedback reporting

Alternatives to traditional budgeting

Zero-based budgeting
Activity based budgeting
Criticisms of conventional budgeting

Beyond budgeting

Handelsbanken case study
Using rolling forecasts instead of static budgets
Identifying key business drivers
Business modelling with Excel
Implementing rolling forecasts

Balanced Scorecard and KPI's

The four perspectives of the Balance Scorecard
The 'three step' approach to developing Balanced Scorecard
Identifying critical success factors
Using Balanced Scorecard to develop Key Performance Indicators
Aligning the KPI's with long term strategy
Practical implementation of a Balanced Scorecard
Real life examples of successful implementation