Most businesses want to improve their budgeting and forecasting. But budgeting and forecasting are these big hairy awful things that no one is excited about.
And so I have seen so many clenched fists as people talk about heading into budgeting season. Guess what? If you think it's going to be awful, it will be. Your budgetholders might not be able to literally smell your fear, but if you approach the whole thing half apologising and half looking like you're expecting to get punched in the face, do you think the business is going to think great, let's get started?
No. They'll pick up on your misery, and/or walk all over you. You need to believe that what you're doing is a good thing for the business.
If you don't genuinely believe that - try and reframe it in your mind. The first step in that, is to relax. It's a process, it's got people, it can be improved.
Yes, it's a bunch of work for everyone, but that is not a reason to dread it. Newsflash: we’re all paid to work! They do hard work all the time! I think it's unfair that finance processes are often singled out in a way that other difficult parts of modern work are not. And you should too.
What's the alternative? Everyone just spends what they want? Or everyone comes to you for approval every time they want to buy Post-it® notes? No, that would be stupid. We do budgeting because it's the best way of working towards the best resource allocation in the business.
It’s got loads of problems, but again we don't need to apologise for that - it's not like everything else they're doing is perfect.
That's not to say let's not work on improving things, that's it's own trap. Too often I find that people are doing things a weird or outdated way because, well, it's terrible anyway, why bother trying?
Or, I also see finance teams treat budgeting as something that is happening to them. It's not, it's your process; you can change it, you can make it better.
Not only is planning very important, but it is one of the best ways that you can increase your profile within the business. So, approach it as what it is: hard work, but an opportunity to help the business, and an opportunity to help yourself and your team.
How is that anything but positive?
