How to Create an Annual Budget Report
Updated by Xtensio
Your annual budget report should quickly generate an accurate and reliable overview of your organization’s budgeted and actual expenses, along with your cash flow. A good budget report will help assess key financial, operating and competitive metrics so you can reach your growth goals. Use this step-by-step guide to create your annual budget report, easily.
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Your guide to creating an interactive annual budget report for your organization
The yearly budget report aids in the documentation and recording of financial data throughout the year. We recommend updating it regularly to receive a regular picture of your company’s finances and to make it easy to finish at the end of the year.
The annual budget report will allow you to:
- Create visually-rich annual and monthly budget reports. Add links, articles, sheets and more.
- Quickly generate an accurate and reliable overview of your organization’s budgeted and actual expenses and cash flow.
- Assess key financial, operating, and competitive metrics.
The annual budgeting process should include members of all the departments within your company to get a full view of your organization’s financials and cash flow. To edit, invite your team to participate. Share the link with your management team and key external stakeholders to keep them up to date.
How to create an Annual Budget Report | Step 1
Create an overview outlining your key metrics
Include key metrics on annual cash flow, expenses, income statement and net profit, and give an overview of how your company’s finances are doing in the cover section. Add backgrounds and change color schemes to match your brand styles.
How to create an Annual Budget Report | Step 2
Detail annual revenue and profit
Use charts and graphs to visualize the data and keep in mind that expected sales have a significant influence on costs. When making projections:
- Research industry guides, best practices and other thought-leader publications that focus on your industry. Look at financial information from your competitors, if available.
- Determine your recent monthly growth rate and whether this rate can be continued.
- Communicate with your current customers to better understand their expected needs of your product or service.
- Discuss the expected sales with your sales and marketing departments to help set expectations.
How to create an Annual Budget Report | Step 3
Calculate your annual expenses
After outlining your annual revenue and profit, analyze your operating expenses – what percentage of your operating expenses go towards each department? You should also include the cost of goods and services needed to run your business.
A few things to consider when determining your annual expenses:
- Fixed costs are typically the easiest to calculate and include rent, insurance, leases and other set costs.
- Some of your annual costs directly relate to your revenue (i.e. inventory and/or employee services). The gross margin of your business shouldn’t fluctuate greatly year after year unless new products or services are introduced. Use this data to identify cost savings.
- Employee compensation and headcount are critical in budgeting. Identify when you will need to hire, how long the hiring process takes and establish employee compensation to be in-line with revenues and growth in the coming year.
Example: Shortage of consultants at operating level rather than partner level. Unable to deal with multi-disciplinary assignments because of size or lack of ability.
How to create an Annual Budget Report | Step 4
Include a table to detail your annual income statement
Detail your annual income and expense numbers in addition to the visual graphs and charts. This will help you analyze specific costs and profit avenues so you can plan for savings and growth in the next year.
Quick Tip: With Xtensio’s bar/line chart, you can enter data points and easily switch between bar and line graphs to visualize the data however works best for your specific purpose.
How to create an Annual Budget Report | Step 5
Add a footer and give credit to key stakeholders
Close the report by giving credit to employees, partners, clients and investors. Tell them how much their support and dedication has helped your company reach this year’s goals. Include your logo and contact info so external stakeholders and potential investors can easily get in touch with you.
Share your budget report as a link, monitor & evaluate
When you’ve finished creating your annual budget report with Xtensio’s editor, you can send the live link to your folio to share it as a responsive webpage (and add password protection). The budget report template is adaptable just like other Xtensio tools, it can and should be repurposed, revisited, and revised regularly throughout the year – we recommend quarterly.
