Page 34 - Budgeting for Managers

Step 8: Delivering Your Budget
Back at the beginning of this chapter, we discussed the different
audiences for your budget. You may well present your budget
differently to each audience. (Of course, the numbers should
always be the same.) Budgeting: Why and How 17
With your team, focus on how you came up with the figures
and how you expect the team to spend money and track
expenses through the year. Help them be responsible about
tracking money and let them know you support them in having
what they need to do their job.
Your manager is likely to want to go over the budget careful-
ly before it goes to accounting and finance. It’s good to make
the time to sit down with him or her and review your assump-
tions. Your manager may also want to change some items. For
example, if your manager knows that accounting routinely cuts
each item by 10%, it may be wise to increase your numbers so
you can get what you need.
The financial department may or may not want to see your
budgetary assumptions. Some financial departments
will not want to see all of
your notes but will want Account codes The num-
certain very specific items. bers assigned to expense
Ask them for their guide- categories or jobs so that
lines and samples of the the budget can be tracked throughout
terminology they want you the year.We’ll discuss them further in
Chapter 2.
to use. Much of what the
financial department pre-
pares is available to stockholders or even the general public;
you’ll want to follow their lead in presenting information appro-
priately when it goes outside the company.
Accounting will probably not want to see the budgetary
assumptions page. They will want to put the numbers into the
computerized accounting system. If they’ve given you account
codes, you’ll want to deliver your estimates for the new year
with those numbers, to make it easy for them to set up the new
year on their system.