The importance of making a budget is a financial lesson that cannot be over emphasized. Budgeting gives overview of the finances as well as helps to compare it with the actual results to get the favorability or the adversity. Budgeting beforehand is far better than counting the sheep.Now that we know how important it is to plan & budget, we can say planning & budgeting your business optimally helps you to achieve your goals in a structured manner. It not only helps to run your operations smoothly but also to make decisions that are fruitful for your business. A strategic plan can be developed so on to ensure constant growth. Growing the business and growing the business strategically has a major difference in the time frame of occurrence.

Various plans and budgets which even SME's should prepare are:

• Capital Structure & Returns     • Capital Budgets
• Strategic Plan                               • Cash Flows
• Operational Plan                         • Spending Budgets
• Sales & Marketing Plan              • Sales & Forecast Budgets
• Human Resource Policy

Due to dynamitic nature of markets it is not always possible to follow the plan but to revamp and improve your plans is the most necessary part of planning and budgeting. The entire process helps you to set benchmarks for performing your business activities. A common mistake each SME's owner does is that they are flexible to their own policies and budgets as the situation arises. Sometimes being stereo to your plan gives you results which you are looking for.
There is no right time for implementing new policies in business; it is upon the owner of how they want to shape their businesses. It has been seen that a company which has been started in rooms have become biggest companies in the world. It is not always easy to put everything on paper and you will always need experts for it. Putting your money into planning may be burdensome at times but try to look at the opportunity cost of the same and it will give you your answers.
One of the most trending services in the accounting industry these days is the Virtual CFO Services provided by professionals who have immense knowledge of various industries and markets. They not only help you plan and budget but take an in-depth tour of how you can improve your businesses. CFO is one of the key people of any company because he takes into consideration all the stakeholders of the business. Analysis of plans and budgets is actually more important than preparing it because only then you can improve where you go wrong.

It is easy to say the importance of these things but far more difficult to perform it.
Some of the pro-tips for SME's & startups are:

1. Do it before your start.
The planning function is easy to implement before you start because making amends mid way has a transition effect and would be difficult to phase through.

2. Call the Expert!
Not everyone is capable to do everything perfectly and that is what experts are for. You may or may not afford the best in market but can surely do your due diligence to choose the best for you.

3. Feedbacks and Analysis
We saw that comparing and recognizing favorability/adversity is very important. By analyzing you get to know where you stand. Feedbacks actually give you correct view of activities performed.

4. Ameliorate
Derived from French ameliorate means “To be better”. To get better make corrections and come up with a better follow up plan!

It is said Apple Inc. led by Sir Tim Cook had a 10 year plan for upcoming technologies and that is where it succeeded. To conclude it can be said that a definite and perfect plan/ budget is difficult to prepare but it is not impossible to build one over experience.