14 Types of Budget

John Spacey, updated on April 08, 2023

A budget is a plan for the financial management of an organization. Budgets are commonly created at multiple levels of an organization to track operations, programs and projects and may overlap. A program budget may track the budget of multiple projects. A firm's master budget and financial budget may track the operating budgets of multiple departments and teams. The following are common types of budget.

Operating Budget A plan for the day-to-day operating expenses of a business known as opex.	Capital Budget A plan for capital investment in a business known as capex.
Cash Budget A plan for the cash flow of a business.	Zero-based Budget A budget that starts from zero each year with no baseline spending.
Incremental Budget A budget based on the previous period with small changes.	Contingency Budget A plan to set aside money for unexpected or highly variable costs.
Flexible Budget The practice of adjusting a budget based on real world change such as revenue levels.	Fixed Budget A budget that isn’t changed regardless of what happens.
Project Budget A cost plan for a one-time initiative of change.	Sales Budget A forecast of revenue and revenue related expenses.
Overhead Budget A plan for overhead costs not related to sales or production volumes.	Balanced Budget A budget where revenues equal expenses. Typically applies to governments.
Master Budget A comprehensive budget that captures all other budgets developed by an organization.	Financial Budget The overall plan and forecast for an organization's financial management in a period including opex, capex, cash balances, assets, liabilities, revenue and financing.