I Wrote You a Book on Annual Planning

Seriously.

While I haven’t put a man on the moon, nor won the Field’s Medal in mathematics, to my knowledge, this is the most comprehensive guide ever written on the company budgeting process. It’s 56 pages long, and covers the following topics:

Full book available for download below

More specifically, here’s what the guide will teach you:

  • The Model: The five building blocks of any great model

  • Tops Down Target Setting: The six questions required

  • Kicking off the Process: The three required decisions for the CEO and CFO

  • Setting OKRS: How to set priorities for your exec team

  • Bottoms Up Budgeting: The cadence and process for collecting budget inputs

  • Collection Templates: Templates for gathering departmental input

  • Headcount Planning: How to budget and phase your headcount

  • Contractors: How to treat non W2 workers

  • Software: How to budget for tools

  • Travel: How to budget for travel (revenue generating / non revenue generating)

  • Interlocks: How to run a cross departmental interlock

  • P&L Roll Up: How to consolidate your budget inputs

  • Building Sales Capacity: How to tie sales reps to targets

  • Quota Deployment: The elements of a good quota plan

  • Seasonality: The impact of seasonality

  • Constructing the Sales Pod: Budgeting for BDRs, SEs, Managers

  • Pipeline: How to model marketing pipeline coverage

  • Marketing Sources: How to allocate marketing sources

  • Marketing Funnel: How the tie the marketing funnel to your sales model

  • Marketing Costs: How accounting should track marketing costs

  • Board Approval: How to pitch an annual plan to your board

  • Board Templates: Templates for presenting your proposed budget

This is written by someone who’s lead more than 10 annual planning cycles. That means I’ve made all the mistakes you’ll want to avoid (confession: I always forget to budget for laptop refreshes, and swag for All Hands). I’m glad that my mistakes can be your starting point, and to pass on helpful rules of thumb that will no doubt save you hundreds of hours.

The book is useful to FP&A professionals, CEOs without full time finance help, and CFOs upleveling their processes.

Paid readers can download the entire digital book below.

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