introduction

Today, the human mind is often absorbed in so much data, that it has difficulty processing the multitude of facts and relationships simultaneously and sometimes forgets important elements. Thus, as plans become more and more intricate, they should be documented in writing and include qualitative narratives of goals, objectives, and means of accomplishing the objectives.
This budgeting and cost control course will allow the participant to explore and share with other participants new thoughts in the planning, control, and budgeting cycle, resulting in a renewed energy in returning to the workplace and implementing a more focused budgeting process, which communicates useful and timely information to management.
The course will provide a framework for each topic covered, and then will make extensive use of exercises and case studies.​

Objectives

• Introduction to planning and control
• Budgeting overview
• Behavioural aspects of budgeting
• Understanding cost behaviour
• Flexible budgets and standard cost systems
• Developing an annual/master budget
• Conceptual aspects of budgeting
• Resource allocation
• Activity-based management and activity-based costing
• Controlling Costs: Economy, Efficiency & Effectiveness
• Delivering operational excellence

personal impact

• Acquire best practices in budgeting
• Understand the strategic role of cost concepts
• Explain the costs concepts to the use of cost information for management control
• Describe the role of budgets in the management process
• Discuss the importance of strategy and its role in the master budget
• Prepare a master budget and explain the interrelationships among its supporting schedule
• Understand zero-base, activitybased, and kaizen approaches to budgeting
• Explain the essence of control systems
• Develop flexible budgets for evaluating short-term financial performance
• Identify different cost control measures
• Measure and evaluate performance
• Leverage emerging technologies for delivering operational excellence

outline

•  Strategic Planning
  • Key elements in strategic planning
  • Finance’ role in supporting strategic planning
  • Assessing financial impact of strategic choices
  • Challenging the operational and people impact of strategic choices
  • Finance’s role post global financial crisis
  • Examples of world class finance functions’ roles
  • Do business ethics have a role in finance?
  • Dealing with ethical dilemmas
  • Benchmarking maturity profiles for finance - scorekeeper through to
  • Management vs. leadership
  • Project management methods for month end / budgets etc
  • Motivating finance people
  • Retaining finance people
  • Managing change in finance
  • Role of budgets
  • The budget process
  • How to engage the business
  • Role of forecasts and the link to strategy
  • Comparing and contrasting budgets and forecasts
  • Identifying key business drivers
• Budgeting and Forecasting Workshop 
  • Setting budget targets and goals
  • Budget responsibility centres
  • Categorising and regrouping relevant information
  • The key budgetary statements
  • Budgeting Pitfalls
• Budgeting Methods​
  • Top-down & bottom-up budgeting
  • Zero-based & sctivity based budgeting
  • Multiple-scenario based and flexible budgeting
• Types of Budgets​
  • Departmental budgets
  • Cash budgets
  • Capital and operating budgets
  • Master budgets
• Types of Costs
  • Fixed & variable costs
  • Controllable & uncontrollable costs
• Financial Plan
  • Appraisal techniques
• Post-Budget Analysis
  • Identifying corrective action
• Forecasting
  • Why have a rolling forecast?
  • The rolling forecast process
  • Creating forecast for revenue and expenditure
  • Rolling forecast as a catalyst for change
• Budget and Forecasting Templates
  • Actual template
  • Variance reporting template
  • Reporting template
• Benchmarking and Reporting
  • Financial and non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Milestone monitoring
  • Presenting complex budgets
• Annual Budget and Forecasting Cycle
  • Key drivers behind sales, costs and margins
  • Scenario planning for uncertain futures
  • Budget and forecasting timetable
• Finance Business Partnering
  • Conducting well-structured interviews
  • Designing carefully considered questionnaires
  • Monitoring customer satisfaction
• Management use of Budget and Forecast Data​
  • The different types of reports and their use
  • Developing quality commentary
  • Structuring the monthly management meeting to best use the new information
• Risk Management
  • Role of risk management in corporate governance
  • Finance’ role in supporting risk management
  • Cost/effective risk management in finance's own processes
• Managing/Communicating with Board/CEO/CFO
  • Fundamentals of managing upwards
  • Balancing requirements against resources
  • Managing expectations and maintaining credibility
  • Managing in a business discontinuity
• Controlling Costs: Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness
  • Review concepts and techniques for identifying, understanding, and controlling and managing costs to improve economy, efficiency and effectiveness of organisations.
  • Review tools and techniques that are at a manager’s disposal to make short-term operational decisions.
• Achieving operational excellence: Lean principles, Six Sigma and Technology Innovation