Career as a Budget Analyst
A Budget Analyst is someone who helps various organizations and businesses to allocate their financial resources by developing and executing budgets for them. They monitor spending to remain within budget and estimate future spending requirements. In a private firm, a budget analyst will review the budget and look for new ways to improve efficiency and increase profits. In a non-profit and government organization where profit is not a concern, budget analysts find the best way to allocate the funds amongst various programs or departments. Budget Analysts spend most of their time analyzing data, evaluating budget proposals, recommending spending cuts, redistributing extra funds, and preparing annual reports. They work with project managers in developing the budget of the organizations while looking over proposals, checking for accuracy, completeness, and compliance. They use cost-benefit analyses to explore alternative funding methods, review financial requests, and assess program tradeoffs. They may also look at past budgets and research any financial developments that could affect income and expenditures. Government officials and chief executives in private companies rely on the work of budget analysts to prepare data for them to make informed financial decisions.