Business Finance

Budgeting & Forecasting for Business

Stop Guessing. Build a Budget You Actually Run the Business On.

12 lessons4 modules10h 10m durationbeginner level

Instructor: StretchLearn Faculty

About this course

Most small-business budgets are a spreadsheet built once in January and ignored by March. This course fixes that by teaching budgeting and forecasting as a live management system. You will build a driver-based annual budget from revenue drivers down to net income, layer on a rolling 12-month forecast and a 13-week cash-flow projection, run variance analysis that separates price effects from volume effects, and turn the whole thing into a one-page board deck a lender or investor will respect. Worked examples use real tools (Excel, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, Jirav, Causal, Cube) and real numbers.

Curriculum

Module 1: What a Budget Is For and How the Pieces Fit3 lessons

Budget, Forecast, Plan, Target: Four Words People ConfusePreview45m
The Three Statements Your Budget Must Tie To🔒50m
Top-Down vs Bottom-Up, and the Budgeting Calendar🔒45m

Module 2: Building the Annual Operating Budget3 lessons

Driver-Based Revenue: Don't Just Grow Last Year by 10 Percent🔒55m
Costs That Behave: Fixed, Variable, and the Flexible Budget🔒55m
Zero-Based vs Incremental Budgeting, and Headcount🔒50m

Module 3: Variance Analysis: Reading What Actually Happened3 lessons

The Budget-vs-Actual Report and the % That Matters🔒50m
Splitting the Variance: Price, Volume, and Rate🔒55m
From Variance to Action: The Monthly Close Review🔒45m

Module 4: Rolling Forecasts, Cash, and Presenting to Stakeholders3 lessons

The Rolling Forecast: Always 12 Months Ahead🔒55m
The 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast🔒50m
Scenarios and the Board-Ready Presentation🔒55m