Budget Analyst Careers - Overview, Types, List of Careers

Budget Analyst Careers Overview

A budget analyst refers to the person who prepares financial and cost budgets for the management to provide a road map for future operations and also measure the variances periodically, providing suitable recommendations to control it as well.

Persons from financial backgrounds should look up to this kind of career if they are okay with the data-crunching part and are flexible enough to work on large databases and numbers daily.

Budget Analyst Careers Overview

Types

An individual may pursue multiple kinds of careers as a budget analyst, based on the fields they are most interested in. Given below are the areas where budget analysts need are needed. Hence, based on their field of expertise, an individual can choose where they want to work as a budget analyst. Let us have a quick look at the available area options:

Cash Flow Budget: This enables the management to ascertain the cash flow available for the company to run its business operations smoothly. The person dedicated to the role will only focus on the daily cash flow of the company and highlight the management in case of any mismatch to arrange the required funds promptly.
Cost Budget: This gives the management the costing of a particular product as compared to its peers and what would be the best price for it to sell it.
Financial Budget: This is an overall financial position of the company taking into account all the cash and non-cash expenses of the company and shows a birds-eye view of the performance comparing it with
Employee Budget: This determines the employee’s strength in the company and ways to increase or decrease the same according to the requirement of the work.
Flexible Budget: This type of budget is prepared to accommodate various kinds of income and expenses to ascertain how flexible the company is to organize itself in times of crisis.

List of Top 6 Careers in Budget Analyst

Below mentioned are some of the budget analyst jobs that a person can reach in his career.

Career #1 – Budget Analyst

It is an individual or company that prepares the company’s budget, keeping in mind the Current Performance, Expected Growth Opportunity, Regulatory Framework, and Target Market to be approached in the long term.

Budget Analyst – Job Description

Responsibilities	Responsible for preparing periodic budgets to support the accounting function.
Designation	Budget Analyst.
Actual Role	Data Crunching in Excel.
Job Statistics	As per the Bureau of Labour statistics of US, the number of jobs in this category was 58,400 as at 2016 and are expected to grow at 7% from 2018 to 2026.
Top Companies	All large corporates
Salary	The median annual salary for a personal financial advisor as of 2018 was $ 76,220.
Demand & Supply	A very high demand profile since the analyst works very closely with the CFO of the company and prepares the variance on a monthly basis in order to major the performance.
Education Requirement	CPA/MBA from Tier -1 Universities with at least 5-10 Yrs of Exp.
Recommended Courses	CPA/MBA.
Positives	Analytical skills become sharp and a chance to interact with the top management on a daily basis.
Negatives	Extensive data crunching sitting on a desk can be boring.

#2 – Financial Manager

A financial manager is one who leads a team of Budget analysts under him and directly reports to the chief financial officer of the company.

Financial Manager – Job Description

Responsibilities	His job is to make sure that all the company budgets are prepared to keep in mind the current and the future scenario and there are no false assumptions in it.
Designation	Financial Manager.
Actual Role	Is to supervise the tasks of the budget analyst and present the same to the senior management.
Job Statistics	As per Bureau of Labour statistics of US, the number of jobs in this category was 6,53,600 as of 2018 and is expected to grow by 16% from 2018 to 2028.
Top Companies	All types of corporates.
Salary	The median annual salary for a research analyst as of May 2018 was $ 1,27,990 As per Bureau of Labour statistics of US
Demand & Supply	Demand for financial managers will continue to grow seeing the demand of the position since very less number of people actually take this profile as their careers
Education Requirement	CPA/MBA.
Recommended Courses	CPA/MBA.
Positives	The job of financial managers including risk management continues to grow.
Negatives	Long Working Hours and daily monitoring of the people are required.

#3 – Cost Auditors

They are the ones who perform the cost audit in the company as prescribed by the regulatory laws and practices.

Cost Auditors – Job Description

Responsibilities	Responsible for doing the cost audit of the books and certifying the cost structure designed by the company so as all the relevant costs are taken into account before arriving at a final price.
Designation	Cost Auditor.
Actual Role	To check the cost structure of the product and provide their views on it.
Job Statistics	No data has been shared with the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US.
Top Companies	All large corporations and big4 CA firms in the world.
Salary	The median annual salary for an auditor position can be anywhere between $1,00,000 to $3,00,000.
Demand & Supply	High demand due to the knowledge and analytical skills.
Education Requirement	CFA/CPA/MBA from Tier -1 Universities with at least 5-10 yrs of exp.
Recommended Courses	CFA/CPA/MBA.
Positives	Extensive Knowledge.
Negatives	Responsible for any kind of wrongdoings in the company.

#4 – Financial Planning & Analysis

This profile is very closely related to the budget analyst job role since the entire financial planning depends on the budgeted parameters.

Financial Planning & Analysis – Job Description

Responsibilities	Responsible for analyzing the financial performance of the company and doing peer group analysis in order to determine the deviation.
Designation	FP & A Manager.
Actual Role	To do financial modeling of the company and help the senior management understand the company performance in a more meaningful manner.
Job Statistics	No data has been shared with the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US.
Top Companies	All large corporates and big4 CA firms in the world.
Salary	The median annual salary for an auditor position can be anywhere between $1,50,000 to $2,50,000.
Demand & Supply	High demand due to extensive financial modeling skills.
Education Requirement	CFA/CPA/MBA from Tier -1 Universities with at least 10-15 yrs of exp.
Recommended Courses	CFA/CPA/MBA.
Positives	Expertise in financial modeling and mathematical skills.
Negatives	Working on a heavy database and knowledge of VBA and coding is essential.

#5 – MIS Manager

An MIS manager is the one who prepares the full MIS report of the organization, taking into account the budgeted and actual numbers from various teams.

Market Research Analyst – Job Description

Responsibilities	His job is to prepare multiple kinds of MIS required by persons within the organization as per their requirements.
Designation	MIS Manager.
Actual Role	Is to work on large databases and prepare various reports in conjunction with the departments within the organization including the promoter group.
Job Statistics	As per the Bureau of Labour statistics of the US no data has been displayed.
Top Companies	All types of corporates.
Salary	The median annual salary for an MIS manager may vary anywhere between $110,000 to $2,50,000.
Demand & Supply	Demand for MIS managers will continue to grow in the future as everything revolves around data and the management requires raw information in order to have concrete decision-making.
Education Requirement	CPA/MBA.
Recommended Courses	CPA/MBA.
Positives	The person gets to know the full picture of the company by looking at various kinds of reports and correlating the same with each other.
Negatives	Long working hours and an extensive amount of number crunching, monotonous in nature.

#6 – Cost Accountants

They are the ones provided with the relevant cost information to the analyst to prepare his reports.

Cost Accountants – Job Description

Responsibilities	Responsible for accounting for all the costs in the company and assigning the same to the cost drivers to know the exact cost of the product and at what price it should be sold to the customers.
Designation	Cost Accountant.
Actual Role	To absorb all the costs in the right cost driver and allocate the same in the best possible manner.
Job Statistics	No data has been shared on the Bureau of Labour statistics of the US.
Top Companies	All large corporates and big4 CA firms in the world.
Salary	The median annual salary for an auditor position can be anywhere between $1,50,000 to $2,50,000.
Demand & Supply	High demand due to the expertise in the costing and management field.
Education Requirement	CFA/CPA/MBA from Tier -1 Universities with at least 5-10 yrs of exp.
Recommended Courses	CFA/CPA/MBA.
Positives	Deep understanding of the cost structures of the company and ways and means to make it better.
Negatives	These jobs are only required in large corporations due to the regulatory and compliance requirements.