Annual Operating Budget for Small Businesses
- File format: .xlsx
- This is an Excel worksheet with 3 tabs to not only work out your businesses operating budget but to also visualize the numbers.
- DOWNLOAD NOW
Download our FREE ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET TEMPLATES
for small businesses and freelancers
Our free annual operating budget templates help you plan your business operatings ahead of time
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET TEMPLATE HERE:
Personal Entrepreneur Budget Calculator
- File format: .xlsx
- A yearly budget calculator for Entrepreneurs to manage their business as well as personal finances on one Excel sheet.
- DOWNLOAD NOW
InvoiceBerry is more than just templates
InvoiceBerry simplifies invoices and expense tracking helping you save time and money. Create your first invoice in less than 60 seconds.
InvoiceBerry simplifies invoices and expense tracking helping you save time and money. Create your first invoice in less than 60 seconds.
What is an operating budget?
An operating budget is the planned budget for a company, taking into account the expenses and income that the company will most likely have from its current operations.
In that sense, an operating budget combines known, historic expenses, estimated future costs, and the income expected for the following year.
The operating budget is always done before the accounting period, which explains the need for estimating the expenses and revenues.
Generally, an operating budget will include one section for expenses and another for revenues. This contrasts with a company’s general or overall budget, as that budget normally includes other items such as income from investments, as well as other non-operating items.
It can be quite challenging for an accountant, owner or other team member to complete an operating budget. This is because it is often difficult to more accurately estimate historical data—especially since there are different aspects and variables that can affect the company’s costs and sales.
In fact in order to really have a comprehensive operating budget, you should include the following factors:
- past sales performance
- trends in the industry
- seasonality of your products or services
- new products that will be launched or old products to be phased out
- the appearance or disappearance of competitors
Because the amount of volatility that can come from trying to take into account these factors, many companies simply create more than one operating budget.
This allows them to prepare for any declines in revenues or boosts in profit.
While it is important to create an operating budget as close to reality as possible, it is just as (if not more) important to compare the operating budget with reality on a rolling basis.
Usually, there is a column included for actual costs and revenues to compare the projections to the reality.
The managers or owners normally try to answer a few questions:
- Are the sales goals being met or exceeded?
- Are the cost projections being met or exceeded?
- Are there any other expenses that were unaccounted for?
With this information, the owner or managers can create better operating budgets, as well as adapt aspects of the business that need to be fixed.
For example, if the costs in the operating budget are being exceeded in a significant way, the owner or manager can review the fixed and variable costs to find out what is happening and determine how to reduce those costs.