Why You Should Attend:

• Understand the limitations of “traditional” budgeting and why change is necessary for so many modern-focused organisations, across all industry sector
• Gain an understanding of how modern budgetary techniques can provide real support to business managers
• Learn about the “Beyond Budgeting” concept from a member of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table.
• A special focus on the growing trend to “Rolling” budgets / forecasts.
• Learn how to use the different but aligned disciplines of Forecasting and Budgeting to compliment each other

Program Agenda

Day 1

SESSION 1 – The business context and historic / traditional budgeting

• Course introductions
• How Budgeting fits with the wider subject of strategic and operational planning
• History and principles of budgeting
• Traditional / historic budgeting: often much maligned, but why it is so widely used and what benefits it can deliver.
• The common problems associated with traditional budgeting and how they can be avoided or at least minimised.
• Creating a “value-add” budget process: where business managers see budgeting as providing genuine help and benefit/value to the challenges of business management.
• The trainer will draw upon relevant case studies dependent on the mix of delegates and their industry sector backgrounds.

• Value based budgeting
• Performance Budgeting and KPI Budgeting
• Zero based budgeting
• Activity Based Budgeting
• Creating a good-practice Performance Management culture, where budgeting is undertaken within modern management practices of accountability, change management, communication, leadership and a performance / incentive culture.

SESSION 3 – Project and Capital Budgeting / “Capex” evaluation

• The basic accounting differences between “opex” and “capex” and the consequences in the key financial statements, including depreciation treatment
• The main challenges of project budgeting – combining capex and opex, plus contingency issues
• Evaluating capital expenditure – introduction to the discounted cash flow techniques and their practical application
• Incorporating sensitivity analysis to support the decision-making process
• The necessary post-audit / post project evaluation discipline – often poorly applied

Day 2

SESSION 4 – “Beyond Budgeting”

• The basic concept and sought-after benefits – how much is changing the planning / budgeting process and how much is about management philosophy and culture?
• The key principles of Process and Leadership within Beyond Budgeting.
• Abandoning the negotiated annual performance trap – incentivising people to achieve market / benchmark success, not to beat an internal negotiated budget
• How Beyond Budgeting aligns with Rolling Forecasts
• The practical first steps in moving towards BB: delegate action plans.

SESSION 5 – Rolling Budgets and Forecasts (Part 1)

• The Rolling concept and its inherent benefits and downsides: if traditional Budgeting is replaced by a Rolling approach, what can we NOT do in future
• Rolling budgets or Rolling forecasts: which works better :understanding the management accountability implications
• Different aspects and types of Rolling – we explore the range and scope of possibilities. Should Rolling apply to strategic and capital budgets – if so, conceptually how can this be done.
• The behavioural disciplines: Rolling only works when management act professionally and do NOT play the typical budgetary “games”.How can this be effectively implemented.

SESSION 6 – Rolling Budgets and Forecasts (Part 2)

• The 9 key “decision parameters” of practical implementation for Rolling.
• Delegates will undertake an exercise (for take back to the office) in setting out the key aspects of how they hope to apply the 9 parameters within their own organisations
• Delegates will have the opportunity, if they wish, to briefly present their conclusions to the course as a whole for feedback from thecourse leader.
• Course closure

Who Should Attend?

• The course is designed for – those at management and supervisory level in both business and finance disciplines who recognise the need to understand better the practical modern budgeting & forecasting.
   
• The course is NOT designed for – those at more junior level who require a basic introduction to the step-by-step elementary budget and related book-keeping and basic accounting processes.

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