More about budgets…

Last month we highlighted the CFO magazine article “Freed from the Budget”, where companies discussed how they have eliminated the budget process from their companies all together.  As expected, this controversial topic drew lots of opinions from finance and accounting leaders.  What they learned was that many of the challenges to having an effective budgeting process had less to do with budgeting issues and more to do with the tools and techniques required to actually develop the budget.

One reader, Miles Ewing – Deloitte Consulting Principal, shared his ideas of how to develop an effective financial performance management process:

• Align process to purpose
• Separate target-setting from budgeting
• Have a process to redirect funding
• Develop contingency plans

Do you have other ideas on how to make budgeting work for your organization?