How to Become a Budget Analyst

Recently, we explained what you can do with a B.S. in Accounting, and here we’re going to discuss how to get one of the best jobs for accounting program graduates, the role of the budget analyst.

This is a great job for anyone interested in numbers and calculations and for anyone that wants to serve in an accounting role, but not as a traditional accountant. If you like performing complex calculations, issuing projections, and offering financial advice, then this may be the perfect job for you.

In this post, we’ll explain how you can increase the odds of launching a successful career as a budget analyst, why you should think about pursuing this particular job, what you’d be responsible for doing as an analyst, and which skills you’ll need to focus on developing to be successful in the field.

After you’ve learned everything you need to know about launching your career as a budget analyst, fill out our information request form to receive additional details about our 100% online Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting.

If you’re ready to get started, submit your application today.

Is Becoming a Budget Analyst Really a Good Career Option?

Yes, this is an excellent opportunity for anyone looking to establish a lifelong career in a stable, lucrative, and growing industry.

There are three compelling reasons to consider becoming a budget analyst:

1. Demand for budget analysts is projected to grow over the next decade, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that their employment will rise 5% between 2020 and 2030.
2. Budget analysts aren’t just in-demand, but they also get to play an essential role at nearly every organization, since they’re responsible for helping create the financial plans that determine business strategy.
3. Budget analysts are one of the better-paid accounting professions, with the BLS reporting they earned a median annual salary of $78,970 as of May 2020.

If you’re interested in finances, you like crunching numbers and performing complex mathematical calculations, and you’re interested in helping organizations create financial plans, then you should consider pursuing a role in this industry.

What do Budget Analysts Actually Do?

Budget analysts are the professionals responsible for creating an organization’s financial plans and projections.

These plans may cover organizational-wide goals, projections, and expenses, or smaller plans for individual departments, teams, or even single projects.

What’s important to understand about the role is that budget analysts are responsible for performing complex calculations that help organizations plan for the future.

According to Accounting.com, budget analysts are responsible for job duties like:

• Driving organizational strategies, success, and development by providing senior leadership with the financial information they need to make informed, strategic business decisions.
• Protecting the organization from risk by helping it understand and avoid the threat of running out of money to fund specific projects, initiatives, goals, and objectives.
• Helping different departments coordinate their financial plans and strategies to achieve larger, organizational-level goals.
• Running regular reports to deliver financial performance figures to the executive leadership team, specific departments, teams, or project managers.
• Issuing objective evaluations of actual business performance, relying on financial figures to determine what’s working and not working.
• Advising planners to set realistic business strategies based on firm, accurate financial projections. 
• Uncovering unfair or inappropriate expenditures.

To summarize, budget analysts play a critical role in helping organizations plan for the future, with their input helping determine resource allocations, business strategies, and logistical plans.

Because of the critical nature of the work they do, you’ll need to ensure that you are fully prepared to deliver effective analysis and projections before attempting to break into the industry.

What Skills & Abilities are Needed to Become a Successful Training & Development Specialist?

Should you choose to pursue a career in this competitive industry, you’ll need to develop critical skills and abilities, like:

1. Math Skills – Budget analysts spend a great deal of time performing advanced mathematical calculations, since all of their work revolves around projecting costs, expenses, revenue, etc., so you’ll need to ensure that you’re familiar with the mathematical formulas used by accountants and analysts.
2. Financial Literacy Skills – Nobody can become an effective budget analyst without first developing their financial literacy skills, which are required for understanding financial situations, financial behavior of an organization, and financial activities in general.
3. Traditional Accounting Skills – Budget analysts must be capable of performing complex financial audits and understanding sophisticated financial reports provided by accountants, so the more comfortable you are with traditional accounting skills, the more effective you can be as an analyst.
4. Communications Skills – You’ll need excellent communications skills to serve as a professional budget analyst since the work requires communicating with members of the leadership team, as well as with accountants, department heads, team leads, and project managers.
5. Presentation Skills – After completing financial reports and developing plans and projections, you’ll need to build presentations used to convey your findings to key stakeholders at the organization. You’ll need to build clear, accessible, effective presentations to be successful as an analyst. 

While you may not yet possess these skills, the good news is that you can develop expertise in all of these areas by completing an accredited Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from a respected university like CSU Global.

Studying accounting in a serious academic setting will provide you with the opportunity to develop the skills you need to become an effective budget analyst.

Getting your degree will help you convince hiring managers that you’re capable of completing the work and it will also make sure that you’re able to provide value to any organization from your first day on the job.

Do I Really Need a Degree to Become a Budget Analyst? 

Yes, the BLS’s report on budget analysts says that a bachelor’s degree is typically required to get hired, and they also note that courses in accounting, economics, and statistics could be helpful.

While you could probably get a job as a budget analyst without a degree, accounting is the perfect field of study since it will provide you with all of the background knowledge, skills, and abilities you need to complete the work required of budget analysts.

Being able to list a B.S. in Accounting on your resume is likely to provide you with a competitive advantage over people with degrees in unrelated subjects, improving your marketability for competitive industry roles.

Finally, getting your degree in a field like accounting should also help with career advancement, especially after you’ve proven yourself to be an effective entry-level budget analyst.

How Will an Accounting Degree Help Prepare Me for a Career as a Budget Analyst?

Whether you have experience as a budget analyst, bookkeeper, or accountant or you’re starting entirely from scratch, earning a degree in accounting is going to help improve your chances of launching a successful career.

CSU Global’s online Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting program was designed to provide you with everything you need to serve in accounting-related roles like the role of budget analyst.

Our program will train you to handle the most common responsibilities and assignments of budget analysts, including traditional accounting tasks like:

• Reviewing, organizing, and maintaining accurate and clear financial records so that you can create projections based on prior performance.
• Preparing, analyzing, and confirming the accuracy of financial records, ensuring that you have all the details you need to build your analyses.
• Ensuring that the organization’s taxes are paid properly, and on time, helping you to protect it from unexpected tax expenses.
• Identifying ways to increase value, reduce costs, and improve organizational profits.

You’re likely to use these critical foundational accounting skills throughout the course of your career as a budget analyst, so you must develop this expertise before attempting to launch your career in the field.

Our B.S. in Accounting program will also provide you with an advanced understanding of organizational management issues as well, including:

• Qualitative decision making
• Business intelligence
• Economics
• Finance
• Legal compliance and ethics
• Marketing
• Leadership

This foundation in traditional organizational management will allow you to do a better job understanding how an organization’s different core business units work together to achieve shared goals and objectives, letting you devise more effective strategies and recommendations for future financial decisions.

What Else Can I Do to Increase My Odds of Success?

Completing your B.S. in Accounting is the most important way to prepare yourself for starting your career as a budget analyst, but you’ve also got other options for helping increase the chances of achieving success.

First, if you’re interested in getting a leadership or management-level role in the industry, you should think about completing a graduate degree in accounting, like CSU Global’s online Master’s Degree in Professional Accounting.

This program will help you develop more advanced accounting skills, refine your abilities, improve and improve your knowledge of accounting-related issues.

It will also help elevate your teamwork skills, planning skills, and communications skills, each of which could be critical to helping you build a successful career in this competitive industry.

Next, you may also want to consider completing a relevant credential program, which could further improve your skills and abilities, while also helping to increase your marketability for related roles.

Accounting.com mentions that not all budget analysts need professional certifications, but they do say that local, state, and federal government offices are likely to prefer certified job candidates.

They list several credential programs you may want to consider completing, including:

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
• Chartered Financial Analyst.

To be clear, you don’t necessarily need a Master’s Degree or any professional certifications to become a budget analyst, but if you’re looking to maximize your chances for career advancement and want to move past entry-level positions, then you should consider these educational opportunities. 

Should I Get My Degree Online? 

Regardless of which degree or credential programs you choose to pursue, we recommend completing them online rather than in-person, for several reasons.

The most important reason to think about studying online is that it’s simply a more efficient way to get your degree, especially since online programs provide more flexibility in terms of how you’re able to complete your studies.

The ability to study at any time, and from any location, is a huge benefit to studying online, but CSU Global’s entirely-online programs come with several important benefits as well, including:

• No requirements to show up at set times or in physical locations.
• Monthly class starts.
• Accelerated courses.

Our students report that these benefits have been incredibly useful for helping them complete their education requirements without interrupting their existing responsibilities, so if you’ve already got work or family duties that you’ll have to continue attending to, then you will want to consider studying online with us.

Why Should You Choose CSU Global’s Accounting Degree Program?

Our 100% online Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting program was designed to provide you with all of the knowledge and skills you need to launch a successful, lifelong career as a budget analyst.

The program is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, ACBSP Accredited by the Council of Business Schools and Programs, and is endorsed by the Institute of Management Accountants. These prominent designations ensure that your degree will be respected by hiring managers looking for skilled budget analysts.

Our program is also widely viewed as one of the best in the industry and has been awarded several top accounting program rankings, including:

• A #2 ranking for Best Online Bachelor’s in Accounting Degrees by Great Business Schools.
• A #2 ranking for Best Online Accounting Degrees from College Choice.

90% of program graduates report working in the field, with three of the top job titles for alumni being accountant, bookkeeper, and staff accountant, while the average annual salary for graduates is also quite high, estimated at $67,310.

CSU Global itself is widely regarded as an industry leader in higher education, and we recently won several noteworthy awards too, including:

• A Top 10 ranking for Best Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs and Top 7 ranking for Best Bachelor’s Programs for Veterans from U.S. News & World Report.
• A #3 ranking for Best Colleges in Colorado from Best Value Schools.

Finally, we offer affordable tuition rates and a Tuition Guarantee which ensures that your rate won’t increase for as long as you remain enrolled as a student.

To get additional details about our fully-accredited online Degree in Accounting, please give us a call at (800) 462-7845, or fill out our Information Request Form.

Ready to get started today? Apply now!