Budgeting goes beyond salary – Financial expert

Financial and grants management specialist, Benjamin Kofi Quansah, has clarified that budgeting as we know it, does not only involve our salaries.

In an interview with Nana Yaw Odame, host of eTV Ghana’s Men’s Lounge on another episode of the show, he educated more on what budgeting really is and why it is important to budget.

Firstly, he explained that budgeting is about making plans for the future, implementing those plans and monitoring activities to make sure they conform to the plan.

“Budgeting goes beyond salary. You need to look at the income you want to generate, you need to look at the expenses that you want to incur and then if there’s any money that you want to invest, the budget will capture that”, he said.

According to Benjamin, budgeting gives a sense of direction, helps to regulate spending and enables us to clarify our responsibilities. He gave an instance to explain this. “For example, in the household, if I want to do budgeting, I need to take into account the needs of each member of the family and I treat each person as a budget centre”, he said.

He further explained, “If you look at the budget centre within the organizational set-up, it is a segment of the organization that is designated for budgetary purposes so, in the household, each person is a budget centre. I look at their needs and based on these needs, I assign money to each of them so I have my budget right there and it gives me a sense of direction and it makes me more responsible in my spending”.