Budget Preparation and Planning Skills Course

Introduction to Budget Preparation and Planning Skills Course

Budget preparation skills is a comprehensive program that focuses on the essential skills required to understand the processes of costing and budgeting within organizations.

The budget preparation process program is designed to address all the relevant issues concerning cost analysis, budget preparation, and performance measurement.

This budget preparation process course is a must for all professionals who need to master their budgetary skills by learning how costs behave so that realistic business plans can be produced.

Targeted Groups

• Finance professionals.
• Accountants.
• General accounting professionals.
• Business unit professionals.
• In this budget preparation, analysis, and control techniques, anyone who wants to understand the basics of budgeting and costing.

Course Objectives

At the end of this budget preparation, analysis, and control techniques course, the participants will be able to:

• Identify the critical factors required to understand business processes.
• Develop a proper system of cost analysis for budgeting purposes.
• Master the budgeting and financial skills required for better decision-making.
• Identify sources of financial and operational data to support the budgeting process.
• Learn new best practices to manage organizational performance.
• Learn costing and budgeting terminology used in business.
• Understand the importance of a well-defined costing and budgeting process.
• Determine the total 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.

Targeted Competencies

At the end of this budget preparation and planning course, the target competencies will be able to:

• Interpreting financial statements.
• Planning and budgeting.
• Cost control.
• Capital budgeting.
• Applying cost-volume-profit analysis.
• Utilizing breakeven analysis.

Course Content

Unit 1: 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 is costing fundamental?
• Budgets of the financial expression of the operating plan.
• Linking financial and operational issues.
• Behavioral implications of budgeting.

Unit 2: The Framework for Budgeting

• Elements of the budgetary framework.
• Key concepts and terminology.
• Advantages and disadvantages: critical issues to be discussed.
• Overview of the financial statements.
• Balance sheet, Income statement, and cash-flow statement.
• Introducing cost analysis for decision-making.
• The importance of understanding total costs.

Unit 3: Costs Analysis for Budgetary Purposes

• Costing for budgeting: Why?
• Cost terms and purposes.
• Fixed and variable costs.
• Cost, profit, and volume relationships.
• The critical concept of contribution margin.
• The direct and indirect costs of the avocation problem.
• Traditional methods vs. activity-based costing.

Unit 4: Flexible Budgets and Variance Analysis

• Budgeting for management control purposes.
• Describe the difference between a static budget and a flexible budget.
• Compute flexible-budget variances and sales-volume variances.
• Explain why standard costs are often used in variance analysis.
• How to interpret variance analysis?
• Integrate continuous improvement into variance analysis.
• Is budgeting enough?

Unit 5: Beyond Budgeting: Broadening Performance Measurement Systems

• Shortcomings of traditional approaches to budgeting and measurement.
• Linking financial to operational issues.
• The balanced scorecard and Six Sigma.
• Linking strategy execution to performance measurement.
• Financial perspective, customer perspective.
• Internal business budget preparation process perspective, learning, and growth perspective.
• Developing and adapting the scorecard.