The Board Budget Checklist

A typical 15-department budget contains over 8,000 rollup formulas. Every single one has to be perfect. Your finance team should know the actual count, and all formulas should be verified since the last edit.

If department heads input data into the same file that contains your rollup formulas, one deleted row or shifted column can cascade errors through the entire budget. The master file must be protected from well-meaning edits.

When a board member asks "where does this number come from?", the answer should never be "let me get back to you." Your finance team should be able to click any figure and show exactly how it was calculated, who entered it, and when it was last changed.

Excel doesn't maintain automatic audit trails. If someone changed a formula or hard-coded a number three months ago, would your team know? Would they know why? Audit trail gaps put the entire board at risk.

Every person who edits a shared Excel budget multiplies the risk of formula errors. If five people contribute to a budget with 8,000 formulas, that's 8,000 formulas you need to verify five times over. Each contributor's input must be verified.

Budget spreadsheets get emailed back and forth, saved to desktops, duplicated across folders. When your finance team says "this is the final version," there should be evidence to support that. No other versions should exist with different numbers.

A board-level P&L shows totals. But when operating expenses are 18% over budget, you need to see which departments, which categories, and which specific line items are driving that variance. Your team should be able to show that breakdown instantly, not after hours of manual analysis.

Static budget reports are outdated the moment they're printed. Your finance team should be able to compare budgeted figures against actuals at any point in the year, with variances calculated automatically rather than rebuilt manually each reporting period.

Annual budgets become stale within weeks of approval. If business conditions, funding, or market dynamics have shifted since this budget was built, it should have been updated. A rolling forecast that adapts monthly is worth more than a static annual budget that was "right" back in October.

If revenue drops 15%, or a major grant changes terms, or you add a new department mid-year, how long does it take to reforecast? In Excel, this often means rebuilding from scratch. Your team should be able to model a mid-year change in hours, not weeks.