If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that plans change.
For example, I had a cruise booked and paid for, including excursions to play with sea turtles and visit Mayan ruins this spring. Two of my close friends and I were set to venture from Tampa to Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras – live our best tropical lives, if you will. We were supposed to set sail April 19th and return April 26th.
But, like most plans in 2020, our trip came to a screeching halt as a stay-at-home order was put in effect and masses of people and businesses were affected by the pandemic. Our trip got cancelled, and we didn’t reschedule because we had no idea what would happen next.
My example is a simple, trite one, in comparison to the other ways the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on society. However, it’s proof that plans affect us not only professionally, but personally as well.
As we’ve written about in previous Plansmith blogs, planning is a process that we experience and execute every day of our lives. Planning is everywhere, and it’s up to us how we choose to respond and hopefully overcome.
Relating back to banking, a budget is a form of a plan, and as such, must have room to adapt to change. In the biz, we call this process of adjusting plans ‘reforecasting.’
If you want a budget to be more than just a document that sits on a shelf, reforecasting regularly is a great way to make the budget add value and direction to your financial institution’s future.
At Plansmith, we recommend regularly revisiting your budget on a schedule that makes sense for your organization. For some organizations that experience frequent shifts, bi-weekly may be the best option for reforecasting. For others who experience less frequent changes, monthly or even less frequently may make sense. The idea is that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to budgeting, so having a personalized process that is as unique as your organization is ideal.
If you’re curious how Plansmith can help you input a customized budgeting process that makes it easy to reforecast plans as you go, click here.