Monthly and yearly budget forecast and analysis
Many organizations prepare budgets that they use as a method of comparison when evaluating their actual results over the next year. The process of preparing a budget should be highly regimented and follow a set schedule, so that the completed budget is ready for use by the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Here are the basic steps to follow when preparing a budget:
1. Update budget assumptions.
2. Review bottlenecks.
3. Available funding.
4. Step costing points.
5. Create budget package.
6. Issue budget package.
7. Obtain revenue forecast from the sales manager and the CEO.
8. Obtain department budgets the departmental head.
9. Obtain capital budget requests from the senior management team.
10. Update the budget model. Input all budget information into the master budget model.
11. Review the budget. Meet with the senior management team to review the budget. Highlight possible constraint issues, and any limitations caused by funding problems.
12. Process budget iterations. Track outstanding budget change requests, and update the budget model with new iterations as they arrive.
13. Issue the budget. Create a bound version of the budget and distribute it to all authorized recipients.
14. Load the budget. Load the budget information into the financial software, so that you can generate budget versus actual report
