Page 30 - Budgeting for Managers

Budget Review Checklist
•Does it make sense? For each item, do the numbers
look right? Think about the decision you’ve made and
make sure you’re comfortable with it. If not, then get someone’s
opinion or rethink it yourself. Budgeting: Why and How 13
•Does it add up? Even if you use a computerized spreadsheet,
you’ll want to check your numbers.
•Are the big items right? Pay more attention to the line items
with higher figures. If any aren’t done, finish those first, using the
same methods you used in Step 3.
Step 5: Finishing the Budget
Once you complete the larger line items, you need to finish up
the smaller ones. In our example, it doesn’t matter too much
how you do it. Even if every one of the four unfinished items on
our budget doubled for 2003, it would only add $702 to the
budget and the total budget would still be smaller than last year.
On your own budget, total up the smaller items. All together,
they may be more than half of the budget. In that case, you’ll
need to spend some time planning them carefully. On the other
hand, the small items may add up to a tiny part of your budget,
which isn’t worth much of your time. This allows you some flex-
ibility to think about how people view your budget and your
team. If the “bean counters” like to see level costs, keep the
numbers the same. If they expect reasonable growth, then use a
growth figure similar to the one used for the big items. If they
tend to accept budgets at
the beginning of the year,
Bean counter Someone
but make it very hard to in finance or accounting.
allocate extra money later The term is sometimes
in the year, then put in friendly and sometimes derogatory, so
higher numbers to give be careful how you use it. Most often,
yourself a little leeway. the term implies that a person is
In our case, we’re more interested in accounts and mak-
ing the numbers look good than in
going to assume that the
using the money for the things you
small supply items are
feel you need to do your work.
going to increase along