Did you know that the average budget contains about 230 line items and takes close to six months to complete? While that may sound scary, the fact that most budgets aren’t linked to their strategic business plans is even scarier. Without a direct connection between funding and forecasting, your company could be caught off balance. To combat this, most companies have re-engineered their financial planning process. Here are some tips from CFOs to make your new link between business and finance successful:

Don’t rely on technology to provide an easy answer to the creation of a new budget.

Involve upper-level management in the re-engineering process to add credibility and remain focused on your company’s immediate goals.

Forge a link between your finance and operations teams to ensure that proposed budget parameters can be met.

Focus budgetary research on your company’s strategic plan to prevent weighing down the budget with excessive data.

Gary Sorrell, Sorrell Associates