Budgeting and Financial Management
Client: Southern Company Energy Marketing
The Challenge: Develop a comprehensive operating budget for the SCEM Information Technology department.
The Solution: Englert Technology was retained by Don Jefferis, former CIO at SCEM, due to their in-depth knowledge of the SCEM Information Technology department; their operations, services, staff and client needs, to develop the annual operating budgets for business years 1998 through 2000.
Englert Technology coordinated budget activities with representatives from the Chief Financial Officers department. Additionally, Englert Technology staff conducted extensive interviews and budget walkthroughs with a wide-range of information technology directors, managers, or team leads, and their supported organizations to identify - then quantify, level of service budgets. Forecast budget amounts were cross-referenced to prior year expenditures as appropriate. Prior year actual expenditures were reviewed to determine if they were recurring expenditures, and if they should be budgeted for the targeted budget year. Budgets were broken down to the company, department, project, and account levels of detail. Physical budget detail and assumptions were documented and verified. All documentation was provided to the responsible budget managers and to the financial department for review and retention. Budget detail was entered into the online budget system supported by the SCEM finance and accounting department.
Impact: The budgets were developed; then presented to and reviewed and approved by the SCEM Board of Directors.
