

How often you chose to prepare your budgets will be dependent on your business. If variances are caused by incorrect assumptions then this new information should be made use of and reflected in the budget for future months. Once a budget has been made, you should stick to it as far as possible, but review and revise it as needed.īudgets should be updated regularly to reflect changes in the business, such as pricing fluctuations, expansion, new products, change in suppliers, etc. Progress should be monitored against a budget so that variances (the difference between a budgeted, planned or standard cost, and the actual amount made or sold) can be looked into and the causes of these can be identified. Don’t forget to include larger items such as tools and equipment these will all need to be budgeted for.īusinesses often prepare budgets annually but many smaller businesses benefit from preparing budgets for a shorter time period.

The ‘Budgeting’ template will be useful to get you started. Therefore it is important to carefully predict sales and production volumes when doing your budget. material, postage costs and labour (if people are paid on a per unit basis). Variable costs are costs which vary with the number of units you produce e.g.These costs will need to be covered by income if you are to break even. once sales exceed a certain point regularly, you may need to rent larger premises. Of course, many of these costs will have a cap in the long term i.e. These won’t increase with increased sales. A fixed cost is a cost which will stay the same for that period regardless of how well the business performs e.g rent and business rates.E.g if you are going to have meetings with new clients, where are these going to take place? How will you get there? Who will pay for the coffee? All of these costs will need to be budgeted for to ensure you stay in control of your costs.Ĭosts can usually be split into two categories: fixed costs and variable costs. It is important to factor in all of the costs the business may incur and not just the obvious ones such as materials and rent. We have created a Budgeting template to help you – to access a copy scroll down to Download: Budgeting template. what is the maximum number of units you could produce during the month using your initial resource – remember you only have so many working hours each day. Examine your revenue The first step in any budgeting exercise is to look backward at your existing business and find all of your. Speak to other people working in the same field to get an idea of realistic sales volumes and also think about your own capacity e.g. A business budget template can also help you get organized. Also consider other discounts you may offer.īe realistic when you are doing your budget about how many products you think you will actually sell each month, not what you want to sell each month. You may want to offer introductory discounts to your customers to make them aware of your products to begin with, so make sure you consider this. It is useful to start by thinking about the different products the business is going to sell and the prices you are expecting to sell these items at.
