Because a static budget remains unchanged regardless of sales volume or revenue, they’re easy to track and report on. For instance, you might have a budget for one project that differs from another within the same department, allowing you to track how much each project costs over time. In contrast to a static budget, a flexible budget is designed to adjust to changes in the level of activity. It is based on a range of possible outcomes and adjusts to actual results achieved during the budget period. In other words, it takes into account the fact that sales may be higher or lower than expected, and adjusts expenses accordingly.

However, in most cases, a flexible budget is preferable because it is more accurate and allows for greater flexibility in decision making. For example, if you build your static budget based on 1,000 units, but only produce or sell 600 units, the static budget is off. The flexible budget allows you to account for that change, accurately reflecting the situation for 600 units.

• While a static budget is the same throughout a particular period and doesn’t take seasonality or changes in sales into account, flex budgets fluctuate with sales, production, and other business activities.
• Let’s assume a retail store wants to create a budget for the next quarter.
• “We are getting our next steps together and we are working toward a robust appropriations process.”
• Discover how to choose between a static and flexible budget for your business.
• This may include sales, investments, grants, or any other form of revenue.

No matter what budget you choose, you need to have a sound financial foundation. Make your decision carefully and consider the benefits and drawbacks of each for your company or department. Static budgets tend to force you into a box – you’re stuck based on a decision that you made at the start of a cycle without knowing definitively what the year ahead might bring. Harold Averkamp (CPA, MBA) has worked as a university accounting instructor, accountant, and consultant for more than 25 years.

How budgeting works for companies

For example, under a static budget, a company would set an anticipated expense, say $30,000 for a marketing campaign, for the duration of the period. Bear in mind that variable expenses typically go up as revenue increases and go down as revenue decreases. Find the historical average of variable expenses as a percentage of historical revenue and apply this ratio to your projected period. Similar to other forms of budgets, you can find this using historical averages. This allows business leaders to be proactive in making adjustments throughout the period to help return operations to the static-budget mean.

From its definition and advantages to its limitations and practical implementation, we’ve got you covered. Read on to also discover how Brixx software can elevate your static budgeting process. A static budget is a budget set for a certain period of time and stays the same over that period, regardless of business performance or activity levels. A flexible budget is one that changes based on customer activity, business performance, and other factors. To that end, static budgets lack the functionality required by a growing SaaS startup with the moon in its sights or a mid-growth stage company looking to expand. And as customers respond to rapidly changing market conditions, so must the company’s budget.

Strategic Budgeting: What Is It, Process, and Best Practices

While your static budget should prevent overspending, not having flexibility can cause issues. Any business in any industry can benefit from static budgets throughout its organization. A good example of a company that may benefit from a fixed budget is a contractor who renovates homes. This is because they already know how much the customer will pay and then can create a budget based on their fixed, predictable costs to help predict profit from each particular job.

What is a Static Budget in Finance?

Conversely, if revenue didn’t at least meet the targets set in the static budget, or if actual costs exceeded the pre-established limits, the result would lead to lower profits. Once you’ve determined your overall financial goals, you can begin creating your budget by making a list of all your fixed and variable business expenses and comparing them to past sales and revenue data. However, most businesses don’t know how much money they’re going to make from sales. While you can use various sales projection tools, they’re projections, not exact estimates.

It’s not enough to have a budget; you must determine whether it makes sense based on your overall business goals and realistic expectations. You may not feel the need to stick to the original budget in what are building automation systems bas hopes your sales will increase over time, which could cause you to overspend. When they end up spending too much on one project, it leaves them with less for another because they have fixed budgets.

Identify revenue sources

Finance teams can easily identify strengths and weaknesses across the company by reviewing a static budget. The framework makes it easy to evaluate the performance of different business initiatives and departments. And once variances are identified, finance can go to department and executive leaders to flag any concerns or opportunities to make the budget work even better for the business.

A flexible budget is often used in businesses that experience seasonal or cyclical changes in sales volumes. However, even if you’re using a fixed budget, you should monitor your financial performance throughout the year to help you make real-time decisions that can affect the health of your business. Static budget variance is the difference between your projected expenses versus actual expenses or projected revenue versus actual revenue. If your revenue is subject to change, it’s unpredictable, and a fixed budget could leave you with little left to take as profit or allocate to other areas of the business. A static budget doesn’t fluctuate based on your needs, which can delay projects and impact your business in several ways.

For instance, nonprofits know how much money they have to spend from grants and donations to allocate their budget toward various initiatives properly. Even though the static budget is fixed and won’t change over the designated period, it’s essential to continuously monitor the company’s actual performance in relation to the budget. Periodic reviews will help identify any significant variances and provide valuable data for future budgeting efforts. Static budgets make sense for businesses operating in highly stable environments —  an environment with highly predictable revenues and expenses.

However, that would trigger deep spending cuts, including defense spending, which alarms Democrats and some moderate Republicans. Bear in mind that the budget is typically based on historical information adjusted for expectations on changing demand, market expansion, and cost of goods sold, among other aspects. Both forms are reasonable applications for most businesses; however, there are some cases when one budget type might make sense over the other.