HOW TO BUILD A STRONG BUDGET FOR YOUR AGENCY

Budgeting is the practice of trying to reasonably estimate a company’s future expenses and revenue streams so you can monitor the company’s financial health and make informed decisions. “When you set a budget, you are taking control of your future ” – Unknown

Budgeting does not need to be hard, and in this article we are going to do our best to simplify it for you. With a little time and consistency, a budget can be one of the most powerful tools you’ll ever have inside your agency Let’s break it down!

Start with Goals

Creating a budget should start with a list of goals. Ask yourself, what are the long-term goals for the Agency? What will success look like in the near term? Make sure that the goals that you set are (SMART) Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. These goals will have an impact on your revenues and will also determine where you will need to allocate your resources in the next year Your goals will help identify the specific areas that you want to invest in to ensure that you are making progress. Many agencies operate without a budget and instead rely on their gut instincts, or worse, have to wait until the end of the year to determine if the resources needed to invest in new tools or resources are available. Having a budget can provide you with greater clarity and allow you to act with confidence

We realize that building a budget is not easy for everyone, so we have created a budgeting tool that can be used to help you build one for your agency.

This tool is separated into several tabs that work together and are designed to simplify the budgeting process. On the first tab, you can categorize your expected expenses. Once these are entered there they will automatically fill in the “Expense” portion of the next tab, Annual Budget

After adjusting and completing your Annual Budget tab, it will automatically break these expenses down by month in the Monthly tab. In this tab, you can fill in your actual revenue and expenses every month, and it will automatically compare them with the amounts you budgeted. The monthly income statements pull to the Annual tab, which provides an overview of how