Lesson 4 – Budgeting
Setting a budget early on is a key step in the yearbook-making process. By starting early and calculating costs from the get-go your team can make the most of your resources for the best possible outcome.
Here are a few tips to consider:
- Start early.
- Use Calendria’s clear pricing calculator to determine production costs
- Determine expenses for supplies as well as possible additional support (such as photographers).
How to Create a Budget
Step 1 – Review Prior Budgets
- One of the best ways of setting yourself up for success is to learn from the mistakes and victories that came before.
- Take a look at the previous year’s yearbook team records and take note of their successes and also where they may have gone wrong.
- Ask yourself, what are the most costly expenses? Where can we economize? Where can we cut? Were there costs that they didn’t account for that we need to factor in?
Step 2 – Break Down the Yearbook into Tasks
- The next step is to clearly define tasks and estimate the costs required for each deliverable of the task.
- When estimating costs, make them as accurate as possible by researching, making phone calls and referencing the previous team’s records.
- These tasks may include; designing, writing, photography, etc. according to specific goals and objectives.
Step 3 – Add Your Estimates Together
- Once, you’ve established the cost for each task and goal, it’s time to add all the estimates together.
Step 4 – Establish Your Baseline
- When all the individual estimates are added together, what you will have is your baseline for the yearbook.
- Your baseline is the number you will keep referring back to as you work through the creation of your yearbook to determine whether you are over or under your budget.
- As you work through, prices may change or unexpected costs may come up so always reference this baseline to determine whether cuts need to be made going forward or whether there is room to do more.
Step 5 – Add Contingency
- The reality is, not every aspect of the yearbook will go as planned, which is why it is incredibly important to go through these steps to minimize risk.
- Account for factors such as increases in costs of materials, unavailability of resources, changes in design or any other event that can impact the budget.
- As a general rule of thumb, it is best practice to keep 10% of the final budget as a contingency fund.
Step 6 – Review & Revisit
- When your team first creates the budget, the cost estimates will likely be in the form of a range.
- As things progress, the team will gain a better understanding of what the costs will look like.
- For these reasons, it is important to constantly revisit the budget and adjust accordingly as the numbers become more concrete.
- The budget should be reviewed at weekly team meetings so that everyone is aware of whether the yearbook is over or under budget and if adjustments need to be made.
