| name | budget-planning |
| description | Build an annual operating budget / plan - revenue, headcount, opex, and cash - from drivers, with monthly phasing. Use for annual planning, departmental budgets, or a board plan. |
budget-planning
A budget the business can be held to: driver-based, phased, and tied to the goals.
Process
- Top-down targets meet bottom-up build: reconcile leadership goals with what the drivers actually support.
- Revenue plan from drivers (pipeline, capacity, cohorts) - not a flat growth %.
- Headcount plan: roles, timing, fully-loaded cost - usually the biggest opex line; phase hires realistically.
- Opex by department/category; separate fixed vs. variable; tie to the revenue plan.
- Phasing: spread to months (seasonality, hire dates, campaign timing) - not 1/12 flat.
- Cash & runway: the cash impact and, for startups, burn/runway.
- Set up variance tracking so actuals can be compared later (
variance-analysis).
Output
- The budget (revenue, headcount, opex, EBITDA, cash) by month, with the driver assumptions and the
top-down/bottom-up reconciliation - all labeled as a plan/estimate.
Guardrails
- Plan figures are estimates with assumptions (
projections-assumptions); base on sourced historicals.
- Realistic phasing + capacity checks (
methodology); internal data stays confidential.
