013: Creating a Strong Annual Budget for Your Business

1. Forecast your annual revenue by month.

You’ll never know what you can afford if you don’t know how much money you’ll have. As you forecast revenue, consider your business’s seasonality, how many leads are in your pipeline, how long it takes you to close these leads, and when money will arrive in your account based on your business model. Reference industry experts and benchmarks for your initial forecasts as you get started if your company doesn’t yet have historical data.

2. Determine your margins in advance.

With your revenue projected for the next 12 months, decide what percentage of what you earn will pay for the product or service to be produced (cost of goods sold) and what rate you want to keep for profit. Allocate the remaining percentage to operating expenses such as marketing, IT, and employee burden costs like salaries, benefits, taxes, etc. The projected revenue and the fixed percentages will give you and your team an actual dollar amount to plan around.

3. Only pay for what your team needs to achieve the organization’s goals.

Implement a zero-based budgeting process, which Investopedia.com simply describes as a method of budgeting where “budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher or lower than the previous one.” Instead of merely giving your leaders and team members a sum of money to use the entire year, ask your team to create a budget and request funds based on what they need to achieve their objectives. Most organizations have leaders develop budgets based on what’s allocated for their area. Modern business culture often perpetuates the myth that leaders must spend what’s in their budget so their department doesn’t lose it or so they can justify getting more the next fiscal year. Don’t let this type of behavior take root in your organization

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In this episode, we also threw out a few terms, many of which you’ll be familiar with, but we wanted to link to definitions in the show notes if you want to refresh your memory on terminology.

Revenue

Cost of Goods Sold

Gross Profit Margin

Operating Costs

Employee Burden Costs

Net Profit Margin

Zero-Based Budgeting

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Lisa Zeeveld on Instagram and LinkedIn.

(04:39) Today’s listener question: “How do I create an effective budget for my business?”

(06:10) The first step in the budgeting process — forecasting your annual revenue, including how you can do it and what you should consider

(11:12) The second step in the budgeting process — setting your margins for the cost of goods (or services) sold, net profit, and various operating costs such as marketing, information technology, and employee burden costs

(16:38) The third step in the budgeting process — allocating expenses using a zero-based budgeting process

(19:28) The fourth step in the budgeting process — reviewing and updating your budget on a regular basis, ideally monthly

(24:49) Tricia’s advice and tips on budgeting for CEOs and business owners 

(26:15) Today’s One Next Step: Download our Bulletproof Annual Budget Template — a fill-in-the-blank template that will help you clarify your plan for revenue and expenses.

(32:31) Today’s One Next Step: Download our self-assessment tool, Pivot, Pass, Pause or Persevere, to help you access direction and momentum in areas of your business.