sample integrated budget plan

The attached PDF document shows a budget plan that incorporates elements of expense planning and monthly tracking into one document (details made generic for confidentiality). This format allows for:

• Shifting of purchases from month to month as changes to the original plan take place
• Easy identification of outlying and/or unplanned expenses
• Accurate planning of next year’s budget plan from actual GL verified expenses
• View of expenses by natural account, geographic region and month
• Real-time projections of final expenses and variance

Since the same document is used for planning and tracking, all individuals involved in the budget process (management, accounting, line-level employees) can look at the same “picture” of marketing spending without translation of key data from one format to another.

• Page 1 shows a “to date” overview with details of the submitted plan, approved plan, actuals to date, budget plan to date, variance to date, and year end projection and variance. Hidden columns show final budgets and actuals for previous years.
• Pages 2 and 3 show the “planning” pages of the worksheet for one account group (advertising). Planned expenses are shown by month and region/market. Planned spending is indicated with purple text in order to easily discriminate it from actuals, which are colored black (below).
• Pages 4 and 5 show the “actuals” pages of the worksheet for the advertising account. By keeping GL matched actual expenses (text in black) on the same worksheet with the plan, management can easily spot discrepancies. Note: all cells with “desc txt” are placeholders only.