Budget

Let’s face it — budgeting isn’t going to make the top of any manager’s “Favorite Things to Do” list. Yet each year, hospital make substantial investments in developing a comprehensive annual budget, spending heavily for specialty software, staff overtime and temporary help for data entry. Perhaps even more costly (but less quantifiable) are the countless hours that senior managers, accountants, financial analysts and department managers spend to prepare, revise and consolidate budgets.
• We spend more time creating a budget than analyzing it.
• The budget bears little or no relation to our underlying business plan.
• After the budget is approved, no one looks at it again.
Appoint an IT finance specialist
In our hospital, for the regular finance duties, IT has a coordinator who is responsible for routine finance tasks and coordinates with budget and finance departments.
Usually take the prior year’s actuals and make subjective changes, unless there is a huge upgrading, or applying new software.
Use budgeting tools and methodologies
A spreadsheet is the tool of choice for budgeting inside IT department, but Budget Dep. Is planning to test and use Oracle Budgeting Software at the end of the year 2015.
Separate operations from innovation:
A common concern is that the whole budgeting process takes too long. So IT Management is forced to take precious time away from operational duties, and the business suffers. The budget is not finalized before the start of the financial year, and as soon as it is completed.

Adopt enterprise-funding models:
In an effort to expedite the enhancement of healthcare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, hospitals such as ours must follow the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI), therefore our hospital also must apply Ministry of Finance (MOF) rules.
Adopt rolling budget cycles:
Finance staff must also work long hours to complete their tasks on time. Staff workload is even more stressful, because intensity increases towards the end of the cycle amid struggles to incorporate last minute changes and respond to analysis requests as the budget is finalized.

References
CBAHI. (n.d.). CBAHI. Retrieved from http://www.cbahi.org/apps/en/home.aspx
Free Balance. (2009, May 13). [entire-budget-cycle]. Retrieved from http://www.freebalance.com/blog/index.php/trends-in-public-financial-management-the-entire-budget-cycle/
IBM. (2009, July). Best-practice budgeting. Retrieved from http://www.focusintl.com/RBM148-Bestpracticesbudgeting.pdf

Budget Challenge

Hello Dr. Lepervanche
In the hospital chart we have two major departments (executive, medical) each one has an IT coordinator, who has to communicate between sub-divisions and IT dep. in every matter including IT budget.
Regards

Hello BANDAR
To make the budgeting process more timely and relevant, the firm embraced a more complex, albeit intuitive, approach to financial forecasting—the rolling budget. Rather than creating an annual financial forecast that remains static for the year, sometimes produce an 18-month budget and then update projections every month—in effect, recalculating the whole budget.
Regards

Hello Abdulaziz
“Theoretically, between rolling budgets and predictive accounting, companies can minimize the controllable factors that cause inaccurate earnings projections,” says Swaller. “Therefore, they would have fewer actual-to-forecast variations, which in turn would help cut down on stock price volatility.”

Traditional budgeting arose as a way for companies to limit costs.
Regards

References: IBM. (2009, July). Best-practice budgeting. Retrieved from http://www.focusintl.com/RBM148-Bestpracticesbudgeting.pdf Budget Challenge