There are three major principles of budgeting which shaped the guidelines.

• Explain your cost assumptions clearly. Funders want to see that you’ve come up with reasonable cost estimates. Documenting them clearly helps to establish the credibility of your estimates.

• Provide lots of detail about your activities and calculations. A budget doesn’t have to simply be a list of costs. It can also include a description of your research question, a project timeline, and information about how you carried out your calculations. This helps funders to understand why each expense is necessary for your work. A budget narrative can be used to provide additional detail as well.

• Let Excel do the work for you. Excel has lots of features that make it easy to automatically update the values in your budget; handle complex calculations; and keep large budgets organised. Taking advantage of them will make your budget look professional.

The training documents are below.  They are free for anyone to download, modify, and use.

• Budget + Financial Management Guidelines (PDF)

• Sample Budget (from my PhD research in Ghana) (XLS)

• Sample Budget Narrative (PDF)

• Blank Budget + Expense Template (XLS)

• Budget Template (XLS)