From Credit Card Mentality to Stewardship: One VP’s Journey to Budget Accountability

Throughout most of my career, I saw my engineering budget allocation like a magic credit card that either worked – or didn’t. Going through a collaborative budgeting process using the Stratify platform changed that. I now have a more strategic lens when it comes to spending (and Finance is pretty stoked about that!)

Here’s what’s changed for me and why.

Finance’s plan, finance’s problem

Twenty years ago I was a new cost center owner with responsibility for an R&D team, walking into a budget meeting. My CFO and COO were hunched over a desktop looking at mysterious spreadsheets. I pitched the business case for my engineering plans that year, trying to tailor my budget requests to get approved, with my fingers crossed. Ultimately, I had no insight into the wider strategic plans they were working toward – or how my department fit into the big picture.

In another early job, my finance business partner would come to me at annual planning time with suggestions and requests. He’d say, “T&E from last year was this much. This year it should be about 30% more.” Looking back, I didn’t fully understand the context of those requests. The end result felt like I was given a set amount of money as discretionary spending for my department.

Plus, a lot of communication was indirect, over email. I would receive my cost center spreadsheet from finance. I’d have to update my travel spend, make adjustments, and then send it back. Our communication was more about deadlines, and less about strategic questions or collaborating to find areas to save. I assumed my finance business partner would take the spreadsheet and do magic behind the scenes, pulling from one area or another across the whole business budget to make it all add up.

I think this mindset is common for budget owners in organizations with a top-down budgeting approach. My finance business partners were always helpful, but when they shared my budget it felt more like finance’s plan & problem to solve than mine.

Those initial experiences with budgeting formed my approach. I was purely focused on my projects, my people, and what engineering needed to do. I would aim to spend the budget I was given at the start of the process. I wasn’t thinking about how each smaller line item fit into the bigger picture, or the details behind each number.

Budget owner mindset

Now at Stratify, I’m in the unique position of being the Head of Engineering tasked with developing an FP&A software tool that engages non-finance users in budgeting and planning. We run Stratify on Stratify, so I’m now a user of the software my team has built.

When we started our annual planning process in Stratify I didn’t anticipate that it would really impact me. To my surprise, my mindset toward my department spending has completely changed. Here’s what happened.

See the workflow that my finance business partner and I used to collaborate on my budget in Stratify.

Collaborative budgeting

What was different? My finance counterpart invited me into his planning environment in Stratify. He’d assigned me a task to review my expense and workforce plans: Did what he had prepared align with my objectives and goals for the department?  No one had ever asked me to look at a budget through that lens. That level of genuine collaboration was a first for me – and it got me thinking strategically.

Transparency

The level of transparency in the platform made it possible for me to evaluate the plan he proposed. The planning environment in Stratify shows the assumptions behind budget line items in plain English. No complex formulas to decipher.

For example, it was easy to see the number of seats that was driving my total spending on Atlassian software. Because of that, I could quickly see that I was paying for more licenses than we needed. What a waste! Whoa – suddenly I was recommending a cut to my own spending. Let me tell you, that was a first.

Easy to propose changes to plan

I made various changes to the proposed plan. With a few clicks, I found a way to fund training for my team without increasing the overall budget. I added notes on various lines to give my finance business partner context for other changes I wanted to make. No emailing spreadsheets – it was all right there for both of us to see and discuss. Aligned, approved, done.

Self-service access to data

Now I get a BvA report each month that prompts me to jump into Stratify and check on my spending. One click and I can see my progress against my plan.

That’s not something that would have crossed my mind in previous roles because it wasn’t simple to find that information. I suppose I could have asked my finance business partner for support, but that friction held me back. There is something about being able to get at it myself that makes it feel like “my budget.”

Now I can course-correct. For example, we overspent on travel last month – my bad.  I adjusted my plan to balance it out this month.

Ultimately, that ready access to data helps me make more informed decisions about my project timelines and hiring plans. I’m not waiting for someone else to balance things for me; I’m looking to manage it on my own.

Data-driven decision making

The collaborative budgeting process in Stratify showed me that Finance is actually counting on me for insights on the bet way to deploy spending. Without my input, they can’t accurately project the future for our CEO and Board.

Engineering happens to be a pretty expensive cost center, so my stewardship of spending makes a difference to the bottom line. Every dollar adds up, so I want to be spending on areas that count, because delivering our business plan is going to benefit my employees and their well-being.

Now I understand how I can better align the engineering budget to meet goals. I’m making what I feel are strategic, reasonable budget requests to support my department and help the whole business run more smoothly.

And the credit card mentality? It disappeared. I’m a better executive because of that.