Advanced Budgeting & Cost Management Estimating, Budgeting And Cost Control

About this Course

Budgeting and cost analysis are crucial elements for the management of contemporary organizations. Nowadays, if companies want to stay competitive, they are urged to link their strategies with accurate systems of resource allocation and performance measurement. Along this line, budgeting, as well as tracking, controlling & reducing cost represent essential activities to be performed and monitored by organizations as they implement their key processes, activities and operations. In addressing these issues, this course is relevant for those professionals & analysts facing the difficult challenge of improving performance while reducing costs of those processes for which there are accountable. This course provides participants with key cost awareness and budgetary skills, which are essential for managing and controlling resources in times of increasing global competition where the budgets are inextricably linked with both the achievement of strategic objectives as well as with evaluation of future plans and initiatives. In particular, this seminar enables participants to: • Link budgeting and costing with strategy execution • Understand the critical factors which have an impact on business processes • Discuss about modern system of cost analysis for budgeting purposes • Master the budgeting and financial skills required for better decision-making • Identify sources of financial and operational data to support the budgeting process • Explore the best practices required to manage the multiple organizational performances

Training Methods

The seminar will be conducted along workshop principles with formal lectures, case studies and interactive worked examples. Relevant case studies will be provided to illustrate the application of each tool in an operations environment. Each learning point will be re-forced with practical exercises.

Course Objective

By the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

Refine costing and budgeting terminology used in business.
Understand the importance of a well-defined costing and budgeting process.
Determine full costs of outputs for the goods and services provided.
Master traditional techniques and recent best practices on budgeting / cost management
Link finance and operation for budgeting purposes and strategy execution
Learn how to build a comprehensive performance measurement system.

The Training Course will highlight ?

Organizational Impact
Cost and budgeting awareness will be enhanced
Higher chances to design or select a budgetary system that works
Broadened knowledge of performance management techniques
Better attitude to link cost and budgeting to strategy and performance measurement
Deeper understanding of cause-and-effect relationship for budgeting purposes
Better awareness of non-financial implications of budgeting and cost management
Personal Impact
Delegates will understand the budgeting methods most useful to them.
They will understand how to construct a relevant and efficient budget.
They will learn to evaluate the usefulness of costing techniques in accurately calculating and ensuring profitability.
They will reinforce and expand their knowledge by linking budgeting to strategy and performance measurement.
They will broaden their understanding by linking financial and operational issues.

Course Outline

Introduction: The Relevance of Budgeting and Cost Management within Strategy Execution
The link between strategy, planning, budgeting, and cost management
Why budgeting and costing are so important to manage your company.
Towards a cross-functional process-view of the organization
Financial vs. Managerial accounting (where you get information for decision making)
Understand your processes.
Integrating financial and non-financial aspects
Identify and discuss the key issues in terms of budget/costing for your own organization.
The Budgeting Framework and Its Role within the Management Process
The role of budgeting within management accounting
The value of budgeting in your company
Behavioral implications of budgeting
Key concepts and terminology
Advantages and disadvantages
Critical issues to be discussed.
Overview on the financial statements
Balance sheet, Income statement and cash-flow
Cost Management for Budgeting Purposes
Cost concepts and terminology
Different costs for different purposes
Fixed Vs Variable costs
The Cost-Volume-Profit analysis model
Contribution Margin analysis
Manufacturing vs. non-manufacturing costs
Period Vs. Product costs
Inventory evaluation and control
Traditional vs. Advanced Techniques in Cost-Control
Under-costing and over-costing
The consequences for profitability
How to refine the costing system?
Indirect Vs. Direct costs
Traditional Cost Allocations Systems Vs. Activity-Based Costing
Cost drivers: linking resources, activities, and management.
Introducing Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) and Management (ABM)
Broadening the Performance Measurement Systems
Shortcomings of traditional approaches to budgeting and performance measurement
Need to link financial to operational issues
Recent best practices
Balanced Scorecard and Six-sigma
Financial perspective
Customer perspective
Internal Business Process perspective
Learning and growth perspective
Developing and adapting the scorecard