Strategy and planning · 8 slides
A budget presentation asks for approval of next year's plan. It shows the result, the assumptions behind it, the income statement for both years, a bridge that explains the change, the investments and the cases that would break the plan. This template has eight slides, and the headline numbers (revenue, EBITDA and capex) appear in more than one place and must agree, so a finance reader can check the plan without asking for the model.
For CFOs, finance heads and managing directors presenting an annual budget to a board, shareholders, a lender or the management team.
8 slides
What each slide has to achieve and what to put on it. Scroll through, or open the deck and present it.
A board that has to approve a budget looks first at two numbers. With both in the title, the ask is clear before the first slide.
Answer first. Some board members read this slide closely and skim the rest, so it has to hold the result, how it comes about and what it takes.
A budget is a set of assumptions with arithmetic on top. Showing them lets the board challenge the inputs, such as volume, price and wages, and not only the result.
The table every finance reader checks first: both years side by side, with the change in euros and in percent. If it adds up, the rest is credible.
Explains the change in one picture and has to close to the budget figure. Cost increases stand next to the growth that causes them.
Boards approve projects, not totals. A ranked list shows what the money buys and what could be cut.
Shows what happens if the assumptions slip. It turns the what-if questions into one table and shows how far the plan is from a covenant or a limit.
Ends on the asks, so the minutes can record one decision per line.
Brief
Copy the brief or open it straight in the editor. Replace the highlighted parts with your own facts, or attach your files and the numbers come from them.
Create an 8-slide budget presentation for [our board] on [10 December 2026]. Company: [Norvik Components, precision parts], budget year [2027], figures in [EUR million]. Slide 1: title with revenue and EBITDA [68.2 and 8.2]. Slide 2: a summary with the EBITDA change and the margin. Slide 3: four assumptions with their effect in euros [volume +5.8%, price +4.2%, materials and energy +11.7%, headcount +5.2%]. Slide 4: an income statement table, forecast next to budget, with the change in euros and percent [revenue 62.0 to 68.2, materials 24.8 to 27.7, personnel 21.7 to 23.6, other costs 8.1 to 8.7, EBITDA 7.4 to 8.2]. Slide 5: an EBITDA bridge as a waterfall chart that closes to the budget figure. Slide 6: a bar chart of capex by project [3.5 in total]. Slide 7: a sensitivity table with three scenarios, the combined case and a status against a covenant of [6.0]. Slide 8: the decisions we need. Use action titles. Check that every table and the bridge add up, and mark anything you had to assume instead of inventing figures.
A bridge that is off by 0.1 raises more questions than the numbers do. Round every step to one decimal and check that the start plus the steps equals the end. If rounding breaks it, adjust the largest step.
The real baseline is the forecast for the current year; last year's actual is history. If the forecast is uncertain, say how many months of actuals it contains.
A 10% revenue increase means something different if all of it is price. Show the volume effect and the price effect separately, and say whether the volume step is gross or net of the variable costs it brings.
If a lender or a shareholder agreement sets a floor, show where the plan stands against it in the sensitivity table. It is the number the board worries about anyway.
Keep the deck to the story and send the model as a pre-read. The AI builds Excel workbooks with formulas: only the inputs are typed numbers and everything derived is a formula, so the budget moves when an assumption does.
FAQ
The result (revenue and EBITDA), the assumptions behind it, the income statement for the budget year next to the current forecast, a bridge that explains the change, the investments, a sensitivity table and the decisions you need. Eight slides cover it; the full model belongs in an appendix or a separate file.
Lead with the result and the ask, then show the assumptions, then the numbers. A board wants to know three things: what you plan, what could go wrong and what you need from it. Send the model before the meeting and use the meeting for the assumptions and the decisions.
ChatGPT or any other AI assistant can draft the slide wording and suggest a structure. It does not know your actuals, your assumptions or your covenants, so the figures have to come from your model, and any number it produces needs a check against your books. The AI builds editable slides from your brief and can build the model itself as an Excel workbook with formulas. AI makes mistakes, so check every figure.
Yes. The AI builds Excel workbooks for budgets, forecasts and financial plans: only the inputs are typed numbers and everything derived is a formula. A presentation that uses a calculation gets its slides plus the workbook.
Yes. Upload your company's .pptx and the AI builds the eight budget slides, from the summary and the income statement to the EBITDA bridge and the decisions, in that file's fonts and colors. The result is an editable PowerPoint file made of ordinary text boxes, shapes and tables.
No. Norvik Components and all its figures are fictional. The arithmetic is consistent: revenue less the three cost lines gives EBITDA in both years, the bridge closes at €8.2m and the capex projects add up to €3.5m. That makes it a model for your own budget.
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Which chart fits which message: bars to compare, lines for trends, a waterfall for bridges. Includes when a pie works, when a table beats a chart, common traps.
Start from this structure, add your numbers and your company's PowerPoint template, and get an editable .pptx.
Build with this structureFree plan, no card needed