Example Career: Budget Analysts

Career Description

Examine budget estimates for completeness, accuracy, and conformance with procedures and regulations. Analyze budgeting and accounting reports.

What Job Titles Budget Analysts Might Have

• Analyst
• Budget Analyst
• Budget Officer
• Management and Budget Analyst

What Budget Analysts Do

• Summarize budgets and submit recommendations for the approval or disapproval of funds requests.
• Analyze monthly department budgeting and accounting reports to maintain expenditure controls.
• Examine budget estimates for completeness, accuracy, and conformance with procedures and regulations.
• Direct the preparation of regular and special budget reports.
• Provide advice and technical assistance with cost analysis, fiscal allocation, and budget preparation.
• Compile and analyze accounting records and other data to determine the financial resources required to implement a program.
• Review operating budgets to analyze trends affecting budget needs.
• Interpret budget directives and establish policies for carrying out directives.
• Match appropriations for specific programs with appropriations for broader programs, including items for emergency funds.
• Consult with managers to ensure that budget adjustments are made in accordance with program changes.
• Perform cost-benefit analyses to compare operating programs, review financial requests, or explore alternative financing methods.
• Seek new ways to improve efficiency and increase profits.
• Testify before examining and fund-granting authorities, clarifying and promoting the proposed budgets.

What Budget Analysts Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Mathematical Reasoning - The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.

What Budget Analysts Should Be Interested In

• Conventional - Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.
• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

What Budget Analysts Need to Learn

• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.