Higher Education Budget Workbook

This book is designed to assist Higher Education leaders and students in mastering the basics of completing a unit-level budget in a college or university. It is written in a user-friendly way with clear definitions, step-by-step instructions, and examples throughout. This workbook covers all aspects of budgeting from budget history and data analysis to budget projection, to the final presentation, and adoption. It also includes chapters on institutional budget cycles and capital projects development. Each chapter also includes easy-to-use instructions on the use of spreadsheet and presentation programs to create accurate and presentable professional budget materials.
The Sections of the Workbook are:
Chapter 1: Introduction to Basic Budgeting
This section will introduce the reader to why you need to learn budgeting, the ways that budgets are used, and how it is a leadership and planning tool, not just for accounting. With this section (like a chapter), there is a section that introduces spreadsheet elements and formula writing.
Chapter 2: Budget Cycle
Budget is not a static thing; the elements of a working budget go through an annual cycle. This section will take you through the elements of a budget cycle from planning and submission through the end of year accounting and audit. (Working with spreadsheets: Negative, Cell References and Formulas)
Exercise #1: Your Budget Cycle. There is a section on spreadsheet use concerning n to display and format negative numbers for accounting, seeing formulas, and cell references. Exercise #1: Your Budget Cycle
Chapter 3: Budget Terminology
Every field has its own language and budgeting is no different. This section will introduce and define the key budget terminology that you will need to understand to effectively work with unit budgets. There is a spreadsheet section that helps you with writing complex formulas and why you might do them.
Chapter 4: Organizing the Budget History
This section is about taking the first step in the budget process which is organization. You start with what you already know and then put your revenues and expenditures into a structure that you can use and makes sense. Exercise #2: Five Year Budget History
Chapter 5: Budget Projections
The point of a budget is not just to know what you are working with but also to plan for the future. In this section, you will be learning about the three common projection tools used and how to use them. The section on spreadsheets will show you how you can use the data in the spreadsheet to do each projection method. Exercise #3: Macro Budget Assignment
Chapter 6: Budget Analysis
This section helps take you through the process of looking at your budget and understanding it as you look for outliers and trends so that you better handle your budget.
Chapter 7: Presenting the Budget Presentation and Justifications
It isn’t enough to have a budget; you will need to present it for approval and justify your budget needs. This also means more than just the money, it involves your mission, performance data, and your goals. The spreadsheet section will provide instruction on using spreadsheets to develop effective charts for the data that you are working with. Exercise #4: Unit Budget Proposal
Chapter 8: Capital Development
This section introduces you to the process of a capital project. Such projects are typically large, expensive, and permanent expenditures, most usually buildings, but can also in other forms of construction and even things like boats. Instead of spreadsheets, there is a section on how you can use MS Word to run spreadsheet calculations in tables. Exercise #5: Capital Project & Budget Proposal