When your business is growing fast, it’s natural to focus on what feels most urgent – landing sales, hiring new team members and delivering for clients. All too often, budgeting falls by the wayside, and businesses miss the chance to use their numbers as a roadmap for smarter growth.
In this issue of Scale Monthly, we explore four budgeting mistakes that fast-growth businesses often make, and how to avoid them.
Mistake 1: Treating the budget as a one-off exercise
Many businesses still create a budget once a year and rarely revisit it. But in a fast-changing environment, static budgets quickly become outdated.
The fix: Use your budget as a living document. Revisit it monthly or quarterly and adjust it based on performance, pipeline and new opportunities. Forecasting tools like Futrli make this a quick and collaborative process.
Mistake 2: Budgeting without real-time data
If your budget isn’t informed by accurate, up-to-date numbers, it becomes guesswork. ‘Finger-in-the-air’ budgeting can lead to overspending, poor cash flow planning and missed targets.
The fix: Connect your budgeting process to your accounting data. There are multiples tools on the market that enable you to track actuals against budget and spot issues early.
Mistake 3: Forgetting to budget for growth
Scaling usually requires investment ahead of return, for example new hires, marketing, tech, stock. If your budget doesn’t account for these, you risk overcommitting or under-investing.
The fix: Include planned growth costs in your forecasting. Scenario modelling can help you understand how hiring or launching a new product will impact your liquidity. You might want to consider setting aside a growth fund within your budget for planned expansion activities.
Mistake 4: Not linking the budget to decision-making
If your budget sits in a folder and doesn’t influence real business choices, it loses all value. Your budget should feed the decisions you make every week or month. If it’s not guiding you, it’s not doing its job.
The fix: Make budgeting part of your leadership rhythm – allow it to drive Boardroom conversations and guide decisions, like whether you can afford to hire, how you price, when to invest etc. Your accountant or finance lead should be well positioned to translate the numbers into insight that drives your strategy, helping you to understand how different scenarios might impact your bottom line.
How we can help
At Harold Sharp, we help fast-growth businesses build finance functions that scale with them. From setting up smart forecasting tools to providing fully outsourced FD solutions, we can support you every step of the way.
If you’d like to discuss your options, contact Emma Round on the below or complete our Contact Form.
Emma Round
Accountant | Manager
0161 905 1616
esr@haroldsharp.co.uk