Budget Preparation, Allocation & Cost Control

Budget Preparation, Allocation & Cost Control training is essential for organizations and assists them in the decision making and planning process. This seminar provides participants with crucial cost awareness and budgetary skills by combining techniques analysis, problems and examples of real case studies, which is essential in managing and controlling processes / projects in times of increasing global competition where the budgets are inextricably linked with both strategy formulation and cost analysis.

The effective management of budgeting and cost control is crucial for contemporary organizations. In a modern competitive world, companies want to stay competitive; they are urged to think in terms of process-value added to customers / shareholders. Along this line, budgeting, as well as tracking, controlling & reducing cost, represent essential activities that should be monitored efficiently by organizations as they implement their key processes, activities and operations.

In addressing these issues, this Finance & Budgeting training seminar is relevant for those professionals & analysts facing the difficult challenge of improving performance while reducing the costs of those processes for which they are accountable.

This ICL training course will feature:

• Identify the role of budgeting within the organization’s management system
• Develop a proper system of cost analysis for budgeting purposes 
• Master the budgeting and financial skills required for better decision-making
• Link strategy to operational plans
• Learn new best practices to manage organizational performance
• Integrate organizational drivers with strategic objectives
• The understanding of the interrelationship between financial and pre-financial drivers

Participants attending this training course will:

• Successfully build integrated planning, budgeting and reporting process
• Understand costs behavior more accurately
• Deliver more timely and useful information to decision-makers
• Understand capital budgeting
• Identify & manage key financial indicators for the business
• Be able to use specific cost analysis and performance measurement techniques
• Be prepared to understand and implement the Balanced Scorecards
• Be prepared to interpret the financial impact of strategic directions
• Understand the problems of overheads allocation and how Activity-Based Analysis may aid decision-making and pricing strategies
• Select the performance measurement systems that work
• Think proactively beyond budgeting

This Budget Preparation, Allocation & Cost Control training seminar combines theory and practice. Therefore, besides lectures based on Power Point presentations, discussions and exercises, we use company examples to illustrate how the techniques presented have been applied in real case studies.

• Those in charge of designing and managing a budgetary system
• The Staff Person who will be responsible for entering data into the budget system or training others how to enter information
• Those who want to gain control of the firm's financial standing and obtain a firm grasp on the numbers side of their job
• Financial Professionals, R&D Professionals, Sales / Marketing Professionals, General Accounting Professionals, Business Unit Professionals
• Anyone who wants to understand the basics of budgeting, costing and performance measurement

Module 1

Budgeting & Cost Control in the Management System: Link with Strategic Planning

• Budgeting and the Management System of Contemporary Organizations
• Strategic Planning, Budgeting and Management Control
• Strategic Management Accounting – Setting Goal and Objectives
• From Strategic to Operating Plans – Actions and Initiatives
• Measuring and Managing the Performance – KPIs and targets
• Managerial Accountability  

Module 2

Budgeting: Principles and Key Concepts

• Understanding the Context for Budgeting
• The Benefit of Budgeting and its Role for Achieving Organizational Targets
• The Shortcomings of the Budgeting Process - How to improve them?
• Principles of Budgeting
• Main Issues with Budget Preparation
• Capex (Capital Expenditures) vs. Opex (Operational Expenditures)

Module 3

Cost Analysis for Budgetary Purposes

• Cost Concepts and Terminology
• Different Costs for Different Purposes
• Fixed vs. Variable Costs: The Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis Model
• Contribution Margin Analysis
• Manufacturing vs. Non-manufacturing Costs
• Period vs. Product Costs

Module 4

Traditional vs. Advanced Techniques in Cost-Control

• Under-costing and Over-costing: Understand Allocation Methods
• How to refine a Costing System?
• Indirect (OH) vs. Direct Costs
• Traditional Cost Allocations Systems vs. Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
• Cost Hierarchy & Cost Drivers - Linking Resources, Activities and Management
• Introducing Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) and Management (ABM)

Module 5

New Integrated Performance Measurement Systems

• Beyond Budgeting: Integrating Financial and Pre-financial Information
• The Drivers of Value Creation
• The Balanced Scorecard
• Strategy Maps
• Integrated Reporting