What is a Monthly Budget Report? What is a Quarterly Budget Report? How do they assist entrepreneurs and business owners?

Monthly Reports

In all operating budgets, it is important to understand the operations that take place on a month to month basis. You have to track costs, revenues, new costs, new revenues, and all activity that pertains to the financial structure of an organization. Monthly reports basically show what took place in your budget at the end of each month. Similar to month end closing in accounting, monthly budget reports grasps where money is possibly being lost, not made, or both. If organizations are not tracking their “MTD” (Month To Date) budgets, then their “YTD” (Year To Date) will probably be off course. As you learned earlier, budgets are treated as road maps. Organizations must follow this road map to ensure financial feasibility. 

Quarterly Reports

Similar to monthly reports being month to month, quarterly reports are EVERY THREE MONTHS. There are 12 months in a financial year, and every three months in budgeting, quarterly reports are completed to capture the financial operations of an organization over a three month period.  After three months of a budget is analyzed, sometimes putting all three months together gives a historical trend of what is happening in the organization over a three month testing cycle. CFO’s and other Financial Managers can better answer questions pertaining to their organization, and what possible changes have to be made. 

Lecture Discussion – From our lecture, which report do you think is better? Monthly? or Quarterly? Or do you feel they both have a purpose in monthly reporting?

Quarterly Budget Example – Case Study

Use Yahoo Finance, and find your favorite company. Do research, and find a quarterly report that is giving some kind of information of the company you chose. Rather it be future earning, plans, previous financial problems, anything. Find and report with a REFERENCE of the web page you use, with a case study NO LESS THAN 500 WORDS.