Quarterly Budget Planning Meeting

Quarterly planning has become a norm for organizations. Instead of setting12 months' goals and reviewing them at the end of the year, a quarterly plan enables businesses to review their goals after every three months (90 days).

A quarterly budget planning meeting sets clear goals for the next quarter. Team members can discuss the budget for the last quarter and offer helpful suggestions on improvements to be made to the next budget.  

If you have an upcoming quarterly budget planning meeting, thorough preparations are needed to ensure you discuss everything in detail. Explore our quarterly budget planning template to know the main things to include and increase the success of your meeting.

Why Should You Hold A Quarterly Budget Planning Meeting?

Quarterly planning meetings allow teams to achieve the following:

• Detect problems while it's still early and provide solutions
• Maintain an agile culture for the significant developments in an organization
• Review current goals and make necessary changes
• Encourage steady business success
• Encourage more collaboration in the organization

Quick Review

This template starts with reviewing the current performance. Before you start discussing what should be done in the next quarter, it's good to evaluate the performance to know if it's impressive.

A quarterly performance review involves checking many performance aspects, including:

• The financial documents of your business
• Customer satisfaction for the last quarter- customer reviews can provide better insights into customer satisfaction
• Key performance indicators for your business

A quick review brings everyone up to speed on the current performance, making it easier to plan forward.

Positive Highlights

What went well in the last quarter? Of course, you should listen to the member's concerns. And since you have already done a quick review when starting the meeting, it should be easy to pinpoint the positives of your last quarter's budget.

Members should be allowed to pinpoint any positives and contribute their ideas.

Reflect On the Roadblock

Not everything goes on as expected. Sometimes, there might be notable shortfalls from your last quarter. Highlight them and let every member in the meeting contribute. For instance, if you didn't achieve your goals, you should brainstorm the possible reasons why you didn't achieve them.

Early identification of flaws allows you to correct them while there is still enough time. This is an excellent strategy to avoid mistakes from recurring into the next quarter.

Room for Improvement

Now that you are aware of the main roadblocks for the previous quarter, you should identify action plans to improve the situation. What do you plan to do? And who should do it?

This should be an open forum where every member can give their ideas. Every idea should be documented and then sorted according to its order of importance.

Depending on the shortcoming identified, your actions plan could encourage more accountability, shorten/increase the deadlines, use new KPIs, and so on.

During your next quarter's budget meeting, you will review the effectiveness of the action plan to know if you should change them or retain them.

Other Important Feedback

This section does not have to be necessarily related to the quarterly budget planning. It is open discussions where you can look into any other issues affecting your business's overall performance.

However, you may not discuss every other issue raised in detail, especially if you lack enough time. But the feedback you get can provide better insights into what you discuss in the next meeting.

Main Takeaways

Go through the mentioned action plans to remind the members. Also, take a few minutes to know if every member in the meeting is satisfied with what has been concluded.

• Did the members like the meeting?
• Were their expectations met?
• What did they not like? And what can be done to make the next meeting more satisfactory?

When you are done, thank members for their cooperation during the meeting.

Best Practices for a Quarterly Budget Planning Meeting

Holding a quarterly planning meeting can be a challenge when not well prepared. Here are a few other tips to observe to make your meeting more successful:

Plan The Meeting In Advance

Planning is vital for preparing a meeting. Highlight the main topics to be discussed and gather the resources needed. Prepare the reports that will be evaluated for easier reference during the meeting.

Inform Everyone in Time

Everyone should be aware of the meeting. If possible, you should send the notifications quickly enough and send reminders the day before the actual meeting.

Appoint a Moderator

Your quarterly meeting should be led by an experienced and non-biased moderator. The moderator should listen to the remarks of every member and ensure the meeting is done well while observing time.

Set the Meeting Agenda

Everyone should be made aware of the meeting's agenda. If you are discussing the budget, stick to the budget until the time for general feedback.

Wrap Up

A quarterly planning meeting helps assess a business's overall performance and ensures steady success. Hopefully, the above template will help you arrange a successful quarterly planning meeting for your business. You can also explore our other 80+ business meeting templates to choose the most suitable for your business needs.

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