April 11, 2012

How Are You Doing?

By : John Barbar

The first quarter of 2012 is behind us! Can you believe it? It is important to reflect on how the company is doing in relation to the budget and plan established for the year. The importance of a good budgeting and forecasting process has been stressed in previous articles. These two disciplines allow for control, accountability and planning. Three recommendations to be accomplished in the next 15 days: First, prepare and review financial reports comparing budgeted information to actual results. This should be done for the current month and quarter. The comparison to budget will allow you to understand where you are compared to the expectation at the outset of the year. Take the time to understand the reason for the result. Have suppliers increased costs? Does the pricing structure need to be adjusted? Have the sales activity been consistent with objectives? Has customer retention increased? Has overhead crept up at all? It is also a good idea to compare the current year to the previous year. Again, it’s important to understand the reason behind the differences. Seek to find the cause of the variance. An important result of this exercise is identifying areas to be adjusted in order to accomplish the goals for the year. Second step is to create an action plan to implement the changes needed to bring the desired results. This plan will have specific and measurable steps, assigned to a person or team to execute. The team can provide feedback and ideas to ensure the results are accomplished. It is important someone has responsibility to make the changes required and will be held accountable. The team is depending on them! After the review of the historical information has been completed, an action plan created; let’s move to the final step. The third step in the process is to update the financial forecast for the year. If you are really