Hi, I just registered with this site in hopes of gaining a resource that I can pull from. I work as an accountant in a small business and help with the internal duties surrounding accounting. I report to our controller/VP Finance. They have produced a budget for 2018, and we have also put together a rough draft of budgets for each of the departments in our business (marketing, Development, etc). The controller put together our first budget vs actual report to send out to some of our departments earlier this month. I am in charge of doing it for February, so in a couple of weeks. She has asked me to do some research to see what other companies have done when presenting the department level budget vs actual reports. The basic format seems simple enough, with the budget, the actual, and the variance, accompanied by some visual cosmetics and a narrative, but as I've never put one together before I wanted look at some professional reports, and really just learn anything around it. My boss has high expectations and is very conscious of presentation, so I would like to produce something quality. Thank you for any help!
Where can I find posted budget vs actual reports from other companies?
Answers
You won't. Budgets are internal management reports which are for the most part proprietary and are not disseminated beyond the need to know.
As far as presentation, it is like any other financial report, as mundane or fanciful as corporate culture likes.
The important part is that a) you have an accurate budget and b) you get stakeholder buy-in.
Filed Under:
Budgeting & Forecasting