Creating a budget is not just an exercise that the CFO gives to the managers of the company to provide busy work to those already very busy. A budget is a comprehensive financial plan for achieving the financial and operational goals of an organization. Used correctly, a budget is the map of the company’s strategic plan. In creating the budget, the company is developing its objectives for the acquisition and use of its resources. Once in place, it becomes a valuable benchmark to determine how well the steps taken by management are ensuring objectives are attained.

There are many benefits derived from budgeting. It formalizes the coordination of activities between departments while aligning these activities to the big picture – the company’s strategic plan. It provides the assignment of decision-making responsibilities and enhances management’s responsibility. With a solid plan in place, all decision makers are working towards the same goal. In addition, the budget improves performance evaluations – providing a common base for discussion on how well the manager met his goals and providing a talking point concerning why actual results veered from the original budget. It encourages all areas within the business to become more efficient, which rolls up to a greater efficiency company-wide.

Creating an effective budget can be a daunting task. It is more than crunching a bunch of numbers and throwing it out to the team. Participation in the budgeting process is an important part of the employee-management communication process. It leads to group acceptance of the budgeted goals. Budgets must be perceived to be fair and reasonable by employees whose performance will be compared to these goals. The process of creating the budget with the team is an opportunity to hear the team’s opinions and ideas and to share the organization’s vision with them and get their buy-in, which will lead to greater success.

This onsite Budgeting for non-financial managers and leaders’ training will teach them how to make budgeting a powerful, interesting tool rather than just numbers thrown on a page. Participants learn practical skills for assessing the current budget and costs, identifying organizational inputs and outputs, preparing for problems, and achieving financial objectives.