Page 35 - Budgeting for Managers

Budgeting for Managers
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Success Review
We’ve made a really good budget. What makes it good?
• It’s written clearly, so that anyone can understand it.
• It is based on good information from our customers and
our own experience.
•We started with last year’s actual expenses, but we also
did some planning for the coming year.
•We researched the most important items and made some
good management choices, such as buying the old copier.
In preparing our budget, we’ve set up our team for a year of
success.
There’s a lot more to learn. In Chapter 2, we’ll look at all the
parts of a budget and learn to forecast income. In Chapters 3
and 4, we’ll expand on what we did here, so you can create a
complete production budget. In Chapter 5, you’ll learn how to
create a simple project plan and budget. After that, we’ll look at
presenting your budget, tracking money through the year, and
some advanced topics, such as budgeting for small businesses.
Even if you thought you weren’t that good with numbers, you’ll
probably find it easy to learn if you go step by step and work
out each exercise as you go.

Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 1
❏ Having a good plan and a budget reduces costs by helping
you take care of things before they become problems.
❏ A good budget is made up of accurate information, thought-
ful predictions, good guesswork, and careful calculations.
❏ Any budget contains guesswork. If this makes you nervous,
just remember that, if you have good facts and think clearly,
your guesses will be as good as anyone else’s—probably
better.
❏ You can create a budget from past data or from future plans.
If you’re doing production work, you’re repeating past work,