Cost Center Owner – If You Don’t Own the Budget for Your Department – You Should!
As a cost center owner, have you found yourself being asked to approve expenses, but you have no clue where they came from? You know you have a budget, but do you truly understand how it was developed or how you are supposed to work with it on a daily, monthly, quarterly and annual basis?
In the course of the budgeting process, an isolated group often prepares budgets in a vacuum, failing to include the right people in the process. This leads to confusion and frustration when the budget-to-actual expense is compared each month. I have often experienced meetings where budget-to-actual variances are discussed and the manager approving the actual expense (a) has no idea how the budget was prepared and (b) cannot answer any questions about the budget-to-actual variance for the month. This leads to the Board, President and Senior Leaders reviewing and approving a budget based on inaccurate information. They may have unrealistic expectations when planning for the next year as the expenses budgeted in each cost center is inaccurate. Make sure your budget process is well planned out and includes all the responsible parties.
Please contact me if you would like to have your budget process reviewed to learn how to include all of the right contributors, avoid setting unrealistic expectations and finding surprise variances each month.