In-House Counsel

What is the difference between a department?s ?budget? and its ?forecasts??

By Rees Morrison

OK, not the most momentous topic, but as I listened to Karen Klein, General Counsel, Kayak.com at the recent Ninth Annual SuperConference, she kept referring to the two terms, and showed them repeatedly on her slides.

A budget estimates what a legal department will spend in the coming fiscal year. ?Our budget is $14 million for Fiscal Year (FY) 2009.? A forecast, prepared later, revises the budget for FY2009 in light of whatever has been spent through some prior period of time ? the first quarter, the first half of the fiscal year ? and produces a more knowledgeable estimate of the total spend expected for the year.

A sense of ease, of clarity of expression, of abiding concern resolved, now settles over this blog?s reading public.

Full post as published by Law Department Management on May 06, 2009 (boomark / email).