The seminar covers 6 essential areas of modern budgeting:

1. The strategic and capital budgeting systems – they lock together.
2. The corporate budgeting process – 3 vital phases for creating a successful outcome.
3. Approaches to budgeting – there’s ways and ways.
4. Forecasting and preparing the business estimates – back to the future.
5. Tracking performance – monitor and control.
6. Dealing with human problems – acceptance, trust, and energising.

The approach taken in the seminar will be practical as well as conceptual, qualitative and quantitative. The intention is that you’ll be able to apply conceptual principles to practical situations at your workplace. The seminar will incorporate various solved examples and case studies with step-by-step guidelines at appropriate intervals so that you get an opportunity to integrate practice and theory with ample chance to discuss various issues aired during the seminar. We want you to be able to apply your new knowledge from Day 1 back at work!

So much is packed into just three days:

Know the linkages between strategy, capital budgeting and corporate operating budgets.
Know what budgeting is – and is not.
Know the basic components of a budget system and how to slot them together to boost results.
Know what your organisation – and its managers – want and need from a budget system - and how to deliver
Know the pros and cons of a budgeting system – is it dinosaur or ‘new age’?
Know how to educate and energise budget-holder executives - and get them to work for the system.
Know how to work through and resolve budget conflict situations.
Know budget forecasting tools you can use – and how to predict with greater precision, success and confidence.
Know how to undertake genuine budget analysis – instead of just going through the motions.
Know how to recognise when budget numbers don’t stack up – and why!
Know why some expense budgets are understated and others are overstated - it’s a matter of personal agenda and dynamics.
Know how different budget ‘slacks’ impact each other and how you can uncover the problems.
Know when budget ‘slack and bias’ can be accepted.
Know how to quickly scan a budget report to pick out the numbers that matter.
Know why budget-performance management works and performance-review doesn’t.
Know about budget variances – the questions they answer and the new ones they raise.
Know how to identify variances that must be probed – and those that can be passed by.
Know how to develop the right set of interpersonal skills that will drive budget success.

Just three days – a small investment for knowing how to increase the effectiveness and success of your organisation’s budgeting system while improving your professional insight and personal value forever.

Is this the course for you? Click here and take our little test to find out...

• Financial controllers, and newly appointed controllers.
• Accountants, cost professionals and financial planners who would benefit from updating their knowledge in budgeting.
• Executives who manage departments with budget responsibilities .
• Managers or executives - in whatever functional area: project team-leader, facilitator or member of the finance team - who want an insight into budgets and budgetary control practices and principles.

Topic 1: The strategic and capital budgeting system – they lock together

The corporate strategy development cycle – and the controller’s part in it.
Strategic planning and development – whats, hows and whys.
2 dimensions of strategy – both are essential.
Hierarchy of objectives – the 7 vital levels.
How to evaluate shareholder expectations – including the implications of “stakeholder consensus”.
How an effective capital budgeting system works – and its place in strategy development.
Tying the capital budget to the business strategy - as two in one.
Guiding principles underlying a good capital budgeting system.
Step-by- step guidelines on how the prepare a business case – to support a capital investment proposal.
The logic of payback analysis – important information but limited in what it tells you.
The ‘Accountant’s Rate of Return’ on an investment.
The concept of discounted techniques – Net Present Value versus Internal Rate of Return.
A company’s cost of capital – know how it’s decided.
Capital cost model building – including the Capital Asset Pricing Model.
A step-by-step guide to analysing your investment proposal – and backing it up with the right numbers to gain faster acceptance.
The capital budgeting decision – including what to do if your funds are short.
Controlling the capital budget – keeping track of results and “capital drift”.
Post-mortem audit – with an eye to the future.
 

Topic 2: The corporate budgeting process – 3 vital phases for creating a successful outcome

The essence of ‘responsibility accounting’ – and the distinct controls required for “top-down” versus “bottom-up” budgeting systems.
Issues concerning responsibility accounting – a roller-coaster.
6 concepts of budgets you must know.
7 essential rules for setting up a robust budget.
The SMART approach to delegating budget goals.
Organise, co-ordinate, monitor and control the budget process – and deliver the results expected.
Use a simple planning “safety net” – to make sure that nothing escapes attention.
The ‘Master budget’ and supporting budget forecasts.
Analysing separate budget proposals – 5 powerful comparisons and 3 strong sources.
Presenting a composite business plan to senior management:
- persuade others to your way of thinking
- delivering bad news – the right way
- fielding questions that take you by surprise
- keeping things simple.
Get budget managers to accept criticism and change their budget aspiration when circumstances demand it.
 

Topic 3: Approaches to budgeting – there’s ways and ways

The hows, whys, and why-nots of:

Incremental budgeting – the “easier” approach.
Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) – a creative, dynamic, bureaucratic nightmare.
Activity-based budgeting (ABB) – a strong planning approach for your support departments.
Rolling budgets – a “game where the goal posts keep moving”.
Fixed budgets – challenging to set and achieve.
Flexible budgeting – 2 powerful uses.
Programme, planning and budgeting system (PPBS) – the matrix approach.
 

Topic 4: Forecasting and preparing business estimates – back to the future

8 big difficulties you face - with each new business forecast.
6 strong aides that help you forecast your budgets - with greater precision, success and confidence.
9 essential ways that tell you the accuracy of your budget forecast.
9 common reasons why budget forecasts fail to live up to expectations – and 8 down-to-earth ways of avoiding errors.
10 vital factors which affect your degree of forecasting success – a succinct overview of things to look out for – with our hard-won tips on how to overcome them.
3 strong forecasting techniques – and you won’t need numbers.
Forecasting with an uncertain future – without probabilities.
The what, why and how of scenario-building – working backwards instead of forwards.
5 ways of mathematical forecasting - they are easy to master.
Excel® and how it helps you forecast.
 

Topic 5: Tracking performance – monitor and control

Checkpoints, milestones and a variance reporting structure – they act as your “off-budget alarm system”.
The 2 dimensions of cybernetic control – use our guidelines to design an information system that will encourage continuous improvement.
Determine the kind of control reports you’ll want – structure them to achieve maximum effect.
Decide how much detail your control reports should contain and what the distribution should be.
8 characteristics of a well-prepared budget statement – to make sure that performance is correctly reported.
The 9 critical budget variances – what do they tell you?
Adjust variances to reflect the budgeting inaccuracies – build the “controllability” principle into your budget system.
5 ways of identifying which budget variances to investigate – we’ll tell you how to solve this logical conundrum.
 

Topic 6: Dealing with human problems – acceptance, trust, and energising

10 critical human problems associated with budgets – map out the pre-requisites that will help iron them out.
Goodbye performance review, hello performance management – strengthen relationships between the budget players.
Recognise that budget estimates will have the built-in bias of the budget holder.
Know when budget numbers don’t stack up – understand the cause, effect and remedy of budget bias.
Understand the motivations of managers who set themselves very difficult to achieve budgets, and others who take the “easy life” approach – know how to handle both cases.
Different budget ‘slacks’ impact each other - know how to uncover the problems.
Know when to accept budget ‘bias and slack’.
Why it’s important that your organisation’s budget system has a written “code of procedures”.
Build benchmarks for evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of your budget system – and aim to continuously
refine and improve it.