Budget Preparation Skills

The participants in this training course will be able to:

• Learn Costing and Budgeting Terminology used in Business
• Understand the Importance of a Well-Defined Costing and Budgeting Process
• Determine Full Costs of Outputs for the Goods and Services provided
• Master Traditional Techniques and recent Best Practices
• Link Finance and Operation for Budgeting Purposes and Strategy Execution
• Learn How to Build a Comprehensive Performance Measurement System 

COURSE OUTLINE

Budgeting and Its Role Within the Management Process

• The Role of Budgeting within Management Accounting
• Linking Costing and Budgeting to Strategy and Performance Measurement
• The Process of Value Creation: Implications for Budgeting
• What is a Budget and Why Costing is Fundamental?
• Budgets - The Financial Expression of the Operating Plan
• Linking Financial and Operational Issues
• Behavioural Implications of Budgeting
• Case Discussion and Examples

Costs Analysis for Budgetary Purposes

• Costing for Budgeting: Why?
• Cost Terms and Purposes
• Fixed and Variable Costs
• Cost, Volume, Profit (CVP) Relationships
• The Key Concept of Contribution Margin
• Direct and Indirect Cost – The Allocation Problem
• Traditional Methods vs. Activity Based Costing (ABC)
• Case Discussion and Examples

The Framework for Budgeting

• Elements of the Budgeting Framework
• Key Concepts and Terminology
• Advantages and Disadvantages: Critical Issues to be Discussed
• Overview of the Financial Statements
• Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and the Statement of Cash Flows
• Introducing Cost Analysis for Decision-Making
• The Importance of Understanding Full Costs
• Case Discussion and Examples

Flexed Budgets and Variance Analysis

• Budgeting for Management Control Purposes
• Explain Why Standard Costs are used in Variance Analysis
• Describe the difference between a Fixed Budget and a Flexed Budget
• Compute Flexed Budget Variances and Sales Volume Variances
• How to Interpret Variance Analysis?
• Integrate continuous improvement into Variance Analysis
• Is Budgeting Enough?
• Case Discussion and Examples

Beyond Budgeting: Broadening Performance Measurement Systems

• Shortcomings of Traditional approaches to Budgeting and Measurement
• Linking Financial to Operational Issues
• Linking Strategy to Performance Measurement
• The Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma
• Financial Perspective
• Customer Perspective
• Internal Business Process Perspective
• Learning and Growth Perspective
• Developing and Adapting the Scorecard
• Case Discussion and Examples

FOR WHOM:

Financial Professionals, R&D Professionals, Sales / Marketing Professionals, General Accounting Professionals, Business Unit Professionals

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

The training methodology combines lectures, discussions, group exercises and illustrations. Participants will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge of the topics. The emphasis is on the practical application of the topics and as a result participant will go back to the workplace with both the ability and the confidence to apply the techniques learned to their duties.