Budgeting & High-Level Analysis
A budget is only useful if it reflects how the business actually operates, and analysis is only useful if it changes a decision. We work through your real financial history line by line, produce a budget you can hold the year against, and then narrow in on the handful of drivers actually moving your results, the profitable lines, the quiet margin leaks, the months that carry the year.
What's included
- Full review of historical revenue and expense detail
- Every recurring expense identified and categorized
- Revenue modelled by line, not as a single blended figure
- Seasonality reflected month by month rather than averaged away
- A finished budget you own outright, in a format you can actually use
- A walkthrough so you know what's in it and why
- High-level driver analysis, which revenue lines, clients and costs are actually moving the result
- Margin by line of business, so the profitable work is separated from the busy work
Who it's for
- Businesses that have never had a real budget, only a revenue target
- Owners whose current budget is last year's actuals with a percentage bumped on top
- Companies with genuine seasonality that a flat monthly average hides
- Anyone about to make a hiring or spending decision without knowing what it does to the year
How it runs
The actual sequence, start to finish.
- 01
History pull
We work from your actual financial history rather than an industry template, the further back it's clean, the better the result.
- 02
Line-by-line build
Recurring costs, variable costs, and revenue lines are each modelled separately, with seasonality applied where it genuinely exists.
- 03
Pressure test
We check the budget against the decisions you're actually weighing, so it's a planning tool rather than a document.
- 04
Handover
You get the finished budget and a walkthrough of the assumptions behind every line.
What it costs
A one-time project rather than a monthly subscription. Ongoing monthly variance review is a separate service.
Questions about budgeting & high-level analysis
Why is this one-time rather than monthly?
Building the budget is a discrete project with a finished deliverable. Watching the business against that budget month to month is a different job, priced separately as Budget vs. Actuals.
How much financial history do you need?
More is better. If the history is thin or messy, catch-up bookkeeping usually comes first: a budget built on unreliable history inherits every one of its problems.
Do I need to be a bookkeeping client to get a budget built?
No, but the two work considerably better together, since the budget stays tied to books that are actually being maintained.
More questions answered on the FAQ page.
Often paired with
Five places money quietly leaks out of a growing business
None of these show up as a dramatic line item. They show up as a margin that's a few points worse than it should be, for years.
Why your budget stopped being useful in February
A budget built once and never revisited isn't a planning tool. It's a document, and documents don't catch anything.
Ready to talk about budgeting & high-level analysis?
A free 20-minute consultation, no obligation.