Preparing the Budget with Makisha Boothe

Sunday October 24, 2021 comments

Any accounting business and tax advice contained in this podcast is not intended as a thorough in depth analysis of specific issues. Nor is it a substitute for format information. Nor is it sufficient to avoid tax related penalties. If you have specific questions that you need advice for, be sure to schedule a strategy session and not solely rely on information in this podcast. All right, back to the episode.

Hey, it is Chyla Graham, CNRG Accounting Advisory, this is The Nonprofit Ace Podcast and I wanted you to hear this extra nugget Makisha dropped on us and want to see you implement it. And so you know itâ€™s not just me who says some of these things. Alright, so, Hey, everyone, we have a short session with Makisha Boothe of Sistahbiz. If you have not already heard Makishaâ€™s podcast episode, I will include that here but be sure to check her out. She has some tips about really seeing how your vision and your priorities might shift and change as you adapt to what your customer needs.

Chyla Graham

And today, the question Makisha is so graciously going to answer is, what is one thing you want organizations to consider when they're putting together a budget be that for their organization, or grants or even a program that they're running?

Makisha Boothe

Yeah, I would say that, you know, I always talk about how your resources tell the story of your priorities. And so if you say your priorities are this, but then you look in your budget, and the money is deployed elsewhere, there's misalignment there, more than likely. And so I would say, make sure that when building your plan and your budget that is driven by the priorities and that you do that alignment check to make sure that that is there.

Chyla Graham

Yeah, I think it's so often that people just say we pick some numbers, and there's no justification or rationale. And then when it's time to say like, Oh, we actually don't have that much money. It feels arbitrary, like whether we know why we're cutting it. I don't know what we thought we were gonna get if we invested in that area.

Makisha Boothe

Right, right. It's a mistake to not use your budget and your living strategic documents to guide your daily and, you know, ongoing decisions. It's a mistake, it is something I would recommend you absolutely address if that's you, and if you're in that position.

Chyla Graham

See yâ€™all, it's not just me. It's a day by day and so really thinking like your strategic plan is going to inform your budget. And they need to be checked periodically to make sure are you still in alignment, that the thing that we said we were going to do, did the thing that we say this is a goal, this is priority? Are you still practicing that?

Makisha Boothe

That is so true, like I have always had people call me and they're like, I want a business loan. How much do I need? And I'm like, What are you trying to do? Like until you know what you're trying to do then you can't decide how much it's gonna cost. And so then you can't know how much you need so then you can't get a loan, like so really working backwards. Sometimes I have to bring people back and say let's start with what are you trying to accomplish where you're trying to go?

Chyla Graham

Yeah, another reminder to start with the end in mind.

Thanks for listening to another episode of The Nonprofit Ace Podcast. Until next time, bye.

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