Own Your Budget: The Three Stages of Budget Ownership

“We won’t be able to recover that money”

You won’t hear this much in the first quarter of a budget year. But as the year progresses (and things don’t improve), this commentary is more likely to appear.

How can you own your budget if you find yourself in this position?

The starting point of owning your budget is knowing what your budget is about. And the good news is that you don’t need to be trained as an Accountant to figure it out.

Your budget understanding comes from what you already know. You already have a deep understanding of your department, function, organisation, business and industry. The key is to ask the right questions and focus on the right areas.

If literacy is the starting point of owning your budget, then “exploring” and “mining” for hidden value in your budget is the turning point. And it has a resourcefulness flow.

Before you ask for more money, get your team together and ask this question:

“Where can we unlock the value that is already there?”

The third stage of owning your budget is that they need to be future oriented not past centred. What most people do is they manage their budget through a rear view mirror. They can’t see what’s ahead of them.

Here are the three stages of budget ownership as questions:

Do you understand your budget?

Are you extracting maximum value out of your budget?

Does your budget have a future focus to it?

Which of these questions can you answer “Yes” to?

Own your budget so it doesn’t own you.

PS: Are you ready to own your budget? Let’s have a chat.

One sporting stat

On the 28th of January, Shamar Joseph bowled the West Indies to a historic victory over Australia in the Brisbane Test Match. It was their first win in Australia since 1997.

It is estimated that West Indian cricket players are paid about 20% of what the Australian players earn (it is estimated Pat Cummins earned $2M AUD last year). Most sports get the majority of their money from Television rights. And cricket is no different – except that Cricket West Indies do not have a home TV broadcaster to sell their rights to.