AMA's Comprehensive Budgeting Workshop

Your Immediate Take-Aways

• Use and analyze robust budgets
• Use budgeting to help determine strategic direction

Being responsible for the budgeting means you’re playing a vital role in your organization’s future. Your budget enables you to pinpoint critical variables that impact profit so your company can successfully pursue business goals and create value.

In this seminar, you will learn how to work with, develop and present budgets aligned with business strategic goals. Working in groups, you’ll gather the information you need to construct and analyze operating budgets. You’ll practice evaluating and revising your budget to increase its chances of acceptance. This is your opportunity to gain the tools and insights to craft the budget your company needs to overcome obstacles and achieve success.

• Accurately develop an operating budget based on forecasted sales, revenues and costs
• Work with a well-planned budget that clearly highlights crucial variables that impact profit
• Know the line items on the income statement, their metrics and interdependencies
• Develop high-level and alternative strategies to help your company reach specific goals
• Define variances so you can quickly implement changes to meet your company’s financial objectives
• Develop and present a well-thought-out budget that will get buy-in
• Effectively use your budget to provide strategic direction and a blueprint for the upcoming year

• Overview of the planning and budgeting process
• Understanding the definition, purpose and components of a budget
• Operating budget vs. capital budget
• Relationships and metrics of line items on the income statement and the operating budget
• Specific steps to improve the metrics
• Addressing issues and challenges when dealing with assumptions and targets
• Revising and finalizing the budget
• Organizing and delivering your operating budget for feedback and final approval
• Obtaining tips, guidelines and recommendations for developing and presenting your budget
• Performing a variance analysis and identifying potential sources and causes
• Knowing exactly which variances to address in order to plan for next year’s budget

Learning Objectives

• Explain Why an Organization Needs a Budget
• Distinguish Between Operating and Capital Budgets
• Prepare and Present an Operating Budget
• Analyze a Budget, Based on Variances, and Take the Appropriate Actions Related to Performance

Income Statement Review

• Describe What a Budget Is and Its Purpose
• Differentiate Between an Operating Budget and a Capital Budget
• Define the Line Items on an Income Statement
• Recognize How the Line Items Relate to Each Other and the Metrics That Can Be Derived from Them

Preparing an Operating Budget

• Recognize How the Items in a Budget Relate to Upper-Management Assumptions/Targets About the Budget
• Develop Budget Strategies for Meeting Those Targets

Presenting an Operating Budget

• Properly Organize, Format the Components of, and Deliver an Operating Budget Presentation

How to Effectively Use a Budget

• Define Budget Variances and Identify Potential Sources for These Variances
• Perform a Variance Analysis and Determine the Actual Source(s)
• Identify and Implement Changes to the Budget, If Necessary
• Apply Lessons Learned from This Evaluation to the Preparation of the Following Year’s Budget