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Categories: budget
I’m often asked: “What do I need to include in a budget?”
I figured it was time to put together a list of what should be included when you are putting together your project budget. So here goes…
Equipment
Record any goods you need to buy. Record what you need to hire and the duration you’ll need it for. All these things should be in your procurement plan, so use that as a reference. Make sure you’ve put everything from your procurement plan into your budget.
Consumable supplies
Consumable supplies are different to equipment because they are things that get used up. For example:
- Printer paper and toner
- Food
- Raw materials used in testing e.g. if you were manufacturing bricks, you’d need ‘test’ sand, concrete etc (I’m not actually sure what goes into a brick) and these would get used up during the test process.
Again, check the procurement plan to make sure that you’ve included everything you said you would need to buy.
Essentially, the difference between equipment and consumables is the difference between capex and opex.
External staff
Many projects rely on external resources, either from a manufacturer/supplier e.g. to help you install and set up new equipment, or as consultancy resource to do a particular skill e.g. requirements analysis.
Look at the equipment and supplies you need, and see if any of them have the requirement to rely on their own resource – if so, you will need to budget for the people to come with the goods.
Consider what services or skills are required, and whether or not you have them in house. If not, you should budget for buying in those skills e.g. test manager, specialist developer, auditor, health and safety expert, lawyer etc.
If you have to hire people from overseas, or have contractors who will charge in a different currency, read this article on how to manage multi-currency budgets.
Internal staff
Companies vary in how they account for internal staff. You may be expected to cross-charge a department for using internal resource on your project. Or you might be able to use the people “for free”. Check what your internal rules are.
Budgeting for internal staff is one of the hardest things to do on a project, in my opinion. You aren’t charged for their person at their salaried rate, so you’ll need to find out the appropriate charge to budget for.
Taxes
Make sure your project budget includes applicable taxes at the relevant rate. Often, suppliers provide estimates without taxes included, and if you don’t increase the quote amount by the tax amount, you’ll find your budget is wrong.
Expenses
Expenses relate to the costs for the people involved. Whether you are using internal staff, external staff or a mixture of both, they will likely incur some expenses for travel and accommodation. For example, if a supplier attends a meeting at your office, they will most likely charge for their travel to that destination, and hotel accommodation if they need to stay over, and meals.
Some companies also (or instead of) charge a ‘per diem’ which is a daily fee to offset incidentals that consultants away from home incur. It may include a meal allowance, newspaper, laundry etc, but instead of invoicing you directly for all of these incidental costs, the company charges you a flat rate per person per day.
Contingency/Risk management budget
Contingency funds are there to offset risk. Contingency planning can be in the form of time or money. Time also costs money, so either way, make your contingency explicit in the budget.
Management reserves
As well as contingency, it’s also worth including management reserves if you can. This is a figure put aside to deal with unknowns. However, you’ll also hear people refer to management reserves as the ‘contingency budget’ because sometimes they don’t know the difference, or because in their organisation, ‘contingency’ really does mean ‘money put aside in cases of emergency and we don’t know if we’ll use it up but it’s nice to have just in case.’
If you aren’t clear on the preferred jargon of your business, ask the question. Make sure you and your finance team (and sponsor) are talking about the same thing.
Read more about the difference between management reserves and contingency.
Watch this video for tips on how to reduce your project budget.
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Posted on: August 21, 2019 08:59 AM |
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