Finance, Accounting and Audit
Budgeting and Cost Control
Budgeting Cost Control & Cost Reduction
Building a budget somebody will be held to, then controlling against it when the assumptions stop holding.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- US$1,500
Overview
A budget fails for one of two reasons. It was negotiated rather than built, so nobody believes the numbers and padding is the only rational response. Or it was built well and then never used, because the variance report arrives too late and explains the past instead of changing anything. This week covers both: constructing a budget from drivers rather than from last year plus a percentage, and running the control cycle so a variance produces a decision. Cost reduction is treated separately and honestly, because much of what is called cost reduction is deferral, and the difference shows up a year later.
Who should attend
Budget holders and cost centre managers, finance business partners who build and challenge budgets, and financial controllers responsible for the cycle.
What you will be able to do
- Build a budget from activity drivers, and show which assumption each number depends on.
- Challenge a submission without losing the relationship with the person who made it.
- Run a variance analysis that separates price, volume and efficiency.
- Distinguish a cost reduction from a deferral, and say which one is being proposed.
- Reforecast mid year without restarting the whole exercise.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
What a budget is for
- Planning, control and accountability, which pull in different directions
- Why incremental budgeting survives despite everybody disliking it
- Padding as a rational response to how budgets are reviewed
- Setting the calendar so the numbers arrive while they still matter
Day 2
Building it
- Activity drivers, and finding the one that moves the cost
- Fixed, variable, and the large middle that is neither
- Capital against operating, and where the line gets argued
- Recording the assumption beside the number
Day 3
Challenging and agreeing it
- Reading a submission for what has been assumed rather than stated
- Questions that produce information instead of defensiveness
- Negotiating a target somebody will own
- Documenting what was agreed and on what basis
Day 4
Control through the year
- Variance decomposed into price, volume and efficiency
- Reporting that names an owner and an action
- Commitment accounting, and knowing the spend before the invoice
- Reforecasting without reopening everything
Day 5
Cost reduction, honestly
- Permanent reduction, deferral, and transfer to another budget
- Where reduction destroys capability that costs more to rebuild
- Making a saving visible so it is not spent twice
- Tracking a reduction after the year it was announced
What you leave with
- A driver based budget for one of the delegate's own cost centres.
- A variance report redesigned so each line points at an owner and a decision.
- A cost reduction list separated into permanent, deferred, and not actually reduction.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Nairobi, Kenya | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Kampala, Uganda | Classroom | US$1,500 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.