Read our five top tips for budget management

Budget management is important so you can keep track of what is available, and what you’re likely to spend.

1. To manage your budget effectively, always plan your spending after considering the total amount you have available, any flexibility, and any risks of overspending within your budget.

2. Remember some costs can be moved to a different budget. For example, pooled staffing services costs can be allocated to the staffing costs or the office costs budget.

3. Our budget v expenditure and business costs breakdown reports don’t show real-time expenditure, but they do show you how much you’ve spent against each budget.

4. Our business costs breakdown report specifically shows you all items marked against the selected budget, including claims, payment card lines, direct payments, payroll costs and credit notes.

5. Goods must be allocated in the year they are received, and services in the year they are delivered. These transactions need to be included on your year-end form, and this year’s budget can’t be used to pay for next year’s goods or services. For example, a purchase on 31 March 2026 is assumed to be delivered the next day and should be recorded in the 2026-2027 financial year. If you pay for training in April that took place in March, the cost must be moved back into the 2025-26 budget.