Video: Budgeting and Analysis Overview and Objectives

In this lesson, dive into the essentials of budgeting and analysis with Nick Palazzolo, CPA, who brings a streamlined approach to understanding the budgeting process. With a focus on what is truly essential, Nick presents the material using direct, easy-to-grasp graphics and examples. The session zeroes in on crafting a budget that reliably supports business decisions, differentiating between various types of budgets, and the nuances distinguishing a budget from a financial performance statement. Furthermore, gain insights into the fundamentals of projection and forecasting due to be covered in greater detail in a future session. Also, discover the importance of reconciling current budgets against previous periods and performing variance analysis as necessary. Get ready to grasp the key concepts that tie budgeting strategies to real-world financial management.

"Examprep.ai helped me pass all 4 CPA exams on the first try. I highly recommend. I especially like the feedback and ratings the software provides so I know where to focus my time."

Daniel H., CPA

"I can't recommend ExamPrep.ai enough. Nick's lessons turned concepts I struggled with into strengths. I was able to pass FAR right before other exams expired!"

Andrew K, CPA

"I just want to say thank you for the great lesson videos. I couldn't stay awake through lectures of another course. After watching all your FAR lessons I was finally able to pass!"

Alyssa M., CPA Candidate

Video Transcript

Instructor: Nick Palazzolo

Nick Palazzolo is head instructor of ExamPrep.ai CPA Review. Nick's teaching style is engaging & upbeat, combining practical Big 4 tax & assurance expertise with years of 1-on-1 coaching. His lessons are concise and emphasize what you need to know to pass. Whether you're a recent grad or working full-time, we’re confident you can conquer your CPA exams with Nick’s review.

Cite this lesson

Link to this page

[[ citeExample ]]

Copy to clipboard

Copy URL to clipboard

Copy HTML to clipboard

Welcome to Budgeting and Analysis, and I'm going to toot my own horn here, I believe I did a great job with this budgeting lesson. There's a lot here that was not clear to me when I was taking the exam, so I broke it down into really what you need to know, with clear and concise graphics and examples.

Everything here is just bare bones, there's no fluff, nothing. As you can tell, I'm just beaming with excitement to get through this with you. Let's dive into our learning objectives so we can just get that much closer to the content.

All right, nice and simple. We want to prepare a budget to guide business decisions. We're going to talk about budgets, the types of budgets, the difference between a budget and a performance financial statement. We'll also talk a little bit about projection and forecasting, which we will see as an independent lesson. Lastly, we want to reconcile against a budget of prior periods and perform analysis of variances as needed. This does, again, tie into our variance analysis - you're going to have variances budget versus actual, as we've mentioned and talked about before, so you can see the similarities as they come about.

That being said, like I said, I'm quite excited to dive into this. Now, let's get started.

Unlock the full video transcript and subtitles support with a free account!

Get more from this lesson

Create an account 7-day free trial. No credit card required.

Prospective Analysis & Forecasting

Module: 4 Concepts, 49 Videos

Internal Control Frameworks Overview and Objectives

3:45

Introduction to Internal Control Frameworks

5:36

Corporate Structure

2:01

Components of the COSO Internal Control Integrated Framework