Budget Creation and Analysis Tools

Contents

  1. 1 Managing Operating Budgets
  2. 2 The following links are about annual budgets.
  3. 3 Managing Cash Flow
    1. 3.1 Basics of Cash Flow Management -- articles specific to nonprofits
    2. 3.2 More Basics of Cash Management
      1. 3.2.1 Basics of Cash Management
      2. 3.2.2 Preparing a Cash Flow Statement
      3. 3.2.3 Preparing Cash Flow Projections and Forecasts
    3. 3.3 Managing Your Bank Account
  4. 4 Credit and Collections
  5. 5 Budget Deviation Analysis

 

Managing Operating Budgets

A budget depicts what you expect to spend (expenses) and earn (revenue) over a time period . They are useful for projecting how much money you'll need for a major initiative, for example, buying a facility, hiring a new employee, etc. They also help track whether you're on plan or not. There are yearly (or annual or operating) budgets, cash budgets, capital budgets (for major assets, such as equipment, buildings, etc.) and proposal budgets (for fundraising), etc.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

The following links are about annual budgets.


How Do We Prepare a Budget?    for yearly budgets click on Financial Management and scroll down

 

 
 

 
 

Managing Cash Flow

As a new or small nonprofit, your biggest challenge is likely to be managing your cash flow -- probably the most important financial statement for a new business is the cash flow statement. The overall purpose of managing your cash flow is to make sure that you have enough cash to pay current bills. Businesses can manage cash flow by examining a cash flow statement and cash flow projection. Basically, the cash flow statement includes total cash received minus total cash spent. Cash management looks primarily at actual cash transactions. (Note that nonprofits must file a financial statement called Cash Flow Statements, or Statements of Cash Flow -- this statement is not the same as a cash flow budget.)

 

Basics of Cash Flow Management -- articles specific to nonprofits

 
 
 
 
 
 

More Basics of Cash Management

Note that cash management activities, whether nonprofit or for-profits, are essentially the same.

Basics of Cash Management

 
 

Preparing a Cash Flow Statement

 
 

Preparing Cash Flow Projections and Forecasts

More information on doing cash flow forecast

 
 

Managing Your Bank Account

For a new nonprofit, your check register very likely will be your primary means to record and track cash. Whether yours is a new nonprofit or an established nonprofit, you'll need to know how to manage your bank account.
 
 

Credit and Collections

Matters of credit and collections are similar between for-profit and nonprofit organizations, other than that nonprofits obviously grant free services much more than for-profit organizations. Consequently, nonprofits are not nearly as likely to utilize credit and collections procedures.
 
 

Budget Deviation Analysis

You learned above that a budget depicts what you expect to spend (expenses) and earn (revenue) over a time period. Budget deviation analysis regularly compares what you expected, or planned, to earn and spend with what you actually spent and earned. The budget deviation analysis can help greatly when detecting how well you're tracking your plans, how much to accurately budget in the future, where there may be upcoming problems in spending, etc. A budget deviation analysis report might include columns with titles:

Planned for Month

Actual for Month

Difference
(planned minus actual)

% Deviation
(Difference x 100)

Subpages (1): Nonprofit Fundraising and Grantwriting