Thursday, July 28, 2016

Yesterday, we started with some hopefully helpful tips to get you through budget season.

Today, we focus on expenses.

Set aside three hours where you won't be interrupted with your business manager

• Go through every single line item and ask lots of questions
• Classify each line item three ways for 2017 budget
• Increase (how much)
• Static (continuing at same level)
• Decrease (possible deduction or cut)
• Estimate new totals and get a rough cut of expense line totals

Examine operational efficiencies that you can create to cut expense. Review every single contract you have:

• Vendors: everything from cleaning to power
• Talent: know when every contract comes up and what is likely outcome of negotiations
• Barter: if you are like us, that hits our expense line. What do you really need in 2013
• Examine promotion (both sales and programming) and research
• What do you really, REALLY, need?

Tomorrow, we'll look at budget planning....