Budgets are all about preparing for the expected and the unexpected as realistically as possible in the fastest time possible. This article will guide you to preparing next year’s budget using Calxa.
To start off, prepare a budget for Next Year that is based on past performance and future projections. The best results will come from a good mix of strategic and tactical planning that will in turn give you greater confidence in your decision making.
Getting Started
The fastest way to get your budget under way in Calxa is to use the Budget Factory. In a couple of minutes, it will step you through creating a budget based on the current year actuals and projecting them forward to next year (and the one after and the next 10 years if you really need to).
It will do this for all your myriad business units – every program, job or tracking category done in a couple of minutes.
Even though you don’t have a full year of actuals for the current year, Calxa is smart enough to use your budget for the rest of this year. If you have multiple budgets, it will use the one nominated as the Main Budget. You can set your Main Budget in the Budget Manager.
Exporting and Importing
If you have complex calculations then you might want to use the Export and Import functions, which enable you to export your budget to excel. This can also help you to delegate portions of the budget to department heads or those who may not have access to Calxa.
This is especially useful if you need to do any complex calculations (such as building wages budgets from staff lists and hours).
Delegate to your team
Calxa has the capability for you to add extra users – which means you don’t have to do it all on your own! Just add and give permission to the department managers so they can edit their own budgets. Simply add what you the individuals as needed and then remove them later if you don’t want to give permanent access.
Calxa Premier includes 5 users by default and it’s easy to add more for just a couple of months – unless you want them to run their own reports for the rest of the year too.
Getting the Balance Sheet Budget Right
It is important, especially for cashflow forecasting, that when you have completed the Profit and Loss Budget, you look at the Balance Sheet budget.
Most of the calculations such as Super, GST and debtors/creditors are handled automatically by Calxa but you might need to add loan repayments and new projected asset purchases, for example.
Get the Balance Sheet right, and you will get reliable monthly cashflow forecasts.
Approve and Lock Final Approval
Once you have the go ahead from your CEO or the Board that the budget is complete, then lock the budget version for the year so it is in ‘read-only’ mode. This gives you access to your originally approved budget and any new changes are reserved for a new budget version. You can then compare this approved budget to any new budgets.
Copy and Edit Current Forecast
You now have reached the last stage of preparing your budget. Over the next 12 months things will no doubt change so make sure you copy the Approved Budget into the Current Forecast (use the Budget Factory for this) and remember not to lock it.
You can review and edit this budget periodically throughout the year and use it as the basis of your cashflow forecasts.
Once you’ve been using Calxa for a year or more, your budgeting options open up beyond what you could do in the first year. There’s more than one way to prepare next year’s budget so it’s important to think about which will work best for you.
For more information watch our webinar recording Web Chat: Prepare Next Year’s Budget.