This is due to the budget timetable and how long it takes to pull together. c) While I fully support doing budgets, they are only one tool within financial planning and do have weaknesses e.g. imagine you are one month into the new academic year and your actual results are 10% worse than budget, what do you do? Do you a) start taking action to get back on plan or b) “forecast” out until the end of the year to see if month one is a timing blip and no action needs to be taken or whether things could get better or even worse?