A business budget template is a fundamental financial tool that provides a structured framework for planning, tracking, and managing a business’s income and expenses. Whether you are a small business owner, startup, non-profit organization, or a financial analyst, a budget template can help you in various ways.
For instance, small business owners can use it to manage their finances effectively, allowing them to make informed decisions about scaling operations or adjusting pricing strategies. Startups can use it to navigate their early stages by helping them project their funding needs, allocating resources, and monitoring cash flow potential pitfalls. Similarly, financial analysts can leverage budget templates to assess a company’s financial health, helping them provide more accurate forecasts and strategic recommendations based on budgetary data.
Business Budget Templates
We have designed a free budget template to help you quickly create a standard budget for your business with detailed breakdowns, track your expenses against your planned budget, and identify key areas to optimize to cost-save.
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Related: 8 Free Marketing Budget Templates for Excel
How to Use Business Budget Templates
While templates are usually designed to be simple, with clear sections that guide you through financial documentation, allowing you to input data precisely and create realistic financial forecasts that support your business growth objectives, it is still important to understand how to use this business budget template.
Below, we’ve broken down all the key expenses a business budget should have to make it easier for you to complete each section to capture, analyze, and protect your business’s financial performance with clarity and strategic foresight:
Permanent expenses
Permanent expenses are fixed costs that remain consistent regardless of business activity levels. They typically include salaries for full-time employees, bonus payments, benefits, insurance premium payments, recruitment costs, etc. Including permanent expenses in your budget is important for understanding your business’s baseline financial obligations. These costs are usually predictable, helping you account for them easily when projecting cash flow and revenue needs.
Casual expenses
Casual expenses are variable costs that may arise based on specific operational needs. This category includes things such as temporary or casual staff wages, freelance or contract work, and other event-specific costs. It is important to include all casual expenses in your budget to account for the flexibility needed in business operations. These expenses can fluctuate based on projects or seasonal demands, so anticipating and budgeting for them can ensure that you respond effectively to unexpected opportunities or challenges.
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While the template has placeholders for these expenses, it is important to tailor such expenses to your business’s budget.
General/administrative expenses
General or administrative expenses are costs that are related to the overall operation of your business. In essence, these are costs necessary for maintaining the day-to-day operations of your business. Some of the general or administrative expenses that you could include in this section to help you understand the operational overhead of your business include banking fees, consultant fees, office supplies, license fees, business insurance, phone and internet service fees, etc.
Operations expenses
Operational expenses are expenses that are directly tied to the core activities of your business. They include things such as production costs, inventory purchases, equipment maintenance, travel costs, subscriptions, cleaning supplies, etc.
When using a template for budgeting, it is very important to account for all operational expenses because they directly impact the ability of your business to generate revenue. Understanding and including these costs can also help you assess your business’s profitability and operational efficiency. This also makes it easy to make decisions about production processes, inventory management, and resource allocation.
Marketing expenses
Marketing expenses are costs associated with promoting your business. They include things such as advertising campaigns, social media marketing, and public relations efforts. To complete this section in this template, make sure to identify the platforms you will be using to market your business and their associated costs. Tracking your marketing expenses can also help you evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and adjust strategies accordingly to optimize the return on your investments.
Website/mobile app expenses
This category is for costs that are related to maintaining a business’s online presence, such as website hosting fees, mobile app development, and online marketing tools. Including website/mobile app expenses in the budget is important as this will help you allocate enough resources for maintaining and enhancing your digital platforms.
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While templates have all these expenses broken down into segments, it is important to include only those that suit your business. This is why these templates come in different file formats, including Google Docs and Word, to help you tailor your budget accordingly.
Occupancy expenses
Occupancy expenses are costs associated with the physical space where the business operates. It includes things such as rent, mortgage payments, utilities for office space, property taxes, recycling/shredding charges, gas, etc. To understand fixed costs associated with running your business, it is important to include these charges in your budget. This is because these expenses can represent a huge portion of a business’s overall costs, and by accurately budgeting for them, you can ensure you are adequately prepared for such expenses.
Automotive expenses
Automotive expenses are costs that are associated with the vehicles used for business operations, including fuel, maintenance, repairs, and vehicle leasing or loan payments. If your business relies on transportation for operations, including automotive expenses in the budget is important. Budgeting for automotive expenses can help you manage all the vehicle-related costs effectively and ensure you have all the resources for transportation needs.
Additional expenses
In this section, include any other costs not covered in the above sections, such as miscellaneous expenses, employee training and development, unexpected costs, etc. Making your budget as flexible as possible is important in ensuring your business is well-prepared for unexpected financial obligations without disrupting your planned budget. Creating room for these expenses can also help you maintain operational continuity and adaptability in unforeseen circumstances.
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