Budgeting and Forecasting

Budgeting and forecasting skills are at the heart of every corporate planning cycle, when the management team readies itself for challenges that may be obvious, or require their combined experiences, market knowledge, organisational skills and financial savvy to anticipate new challenges ahead. This workshop focuses on the skills to manage the budgeting and forecasting processes that are critical to enterprises large and small. There are industry-standard best practices that structure the planning process, that capture and use known information accurately and tests forecasts and hypothesis for their reliability. These processes and plans, when implemented, also reduce the amount of uncertainty among the planning team, as well as focus attention on the objective of anticipating strategic change. Topics covered include:

1. Introduction: The need for finance plans and budgeting, the difference in plans and budgeting
2. Scoping: Scope the budgeting and forecasting and the specific business goals
3. Financial forecast: Prepare and analyse financial forecast with business objectives
4. Resource management: Use budgets and forecasts to monitor resource allocation and operational effectiveness
5. Accountability: Define accountability in terms of budget usage and understanding variances
6. Getting the buy-in: Present financial forecasts, budgets and budget outcomes to management for review and approval

In this workshop, participants will learn:

1. Scoping the budget and forecasting
2. Prepare and analyse financial forecast
3. Monitoring of resources
4. Set accountability in budget usage
5. Presenting of forecast to stakeholders