12 ways to ensure no buy-in to the annual budget process

Written by Jenny Okonkwo

• Treat it as a ‘Finance only’ chore performed once a year, purely to keep Group / Head office (located elsewhere) happy
• Unilaterally agree how marketing and promotional spend should be treated in the financial statements
• Don’t consult with suppliers and service providers re estimates on major overheads such as utilities – split and allocate quarterly service charges across all months
• Exclude the Fleet department (if it applies) when calculating driver headcount and petrol card charges for the coming year
• Take an arbitrary view on allocating sales volumes and ignore the basis / data criteria upon which Sales bonus / incentive schemes are calculated
• Unilaterally reduce major cost of sales items (e.g. product warranty) with no insight into whether this is feasible or realistic
• Delegate the budget process mechanics and roll out advanced planning ERP based tools to the business with no prior training or orientation
• Stay away from a strategic business expansion planning exercise that requires a re-cut and re-allocation of the original company budget
• Refrain from taking a leadership position in presenting and explaining the financial impact of major projects to senior management
• Ignore major P&L variances to the budget, arising from monthly reporting of the results
• Treat the quarterly business performance review meeting as a social event
• Avoid preparing quarterly forecasts to identify and understand the future impact of the actual results to date.