A step-by-step guide to revenue budgeting

1) Make a list or run printouts of all one-time linage and revenue in previous year. Look for: events (Super Bowl in your city, anniversaries, etc.), grand openings, GOB ads, political ads, legal, etc. that will not run next year. Note the month affected and the amounts.

2) Compare calendars for the two years. Is Easter moving? Are there other holidays that will change day of week and cost you a day or present an opportunity? Will any special sections and pages move from one month to another? Note the changes and the revenue and linage at stake.

3) Have you done your special sections and pages calendar for next year? If not, do it now. Why? First, it affects expenses and newsprint. It should also be available for advertisers by fall, so they can plan. Once you do the calendar, you may find promotions are deleted, added or moved, which has a bearing on revenue!

4) What rate increases will happen next year? When? How much? Will you raise all classifications the same? You must have this information to forecast revenue and linage because rate increases affect both.

5) Now pull your numbers by month for last year (all 12 months) and so far this year.

OK, now you're ready. Fill in the last-year and this-year figures.

For the months you have year-over-year figures, do the math. Figure the variances and percentages.

At this point, stop and look at the trends. Are you up or down? Is there a trend? Use the trends as well as your knowledge of what you have coming up (new businesses, special sells, etc.) to forecast the rest of the year you're in. Once that's done, you're ready to forecast next year, taking items 1-5 above into consideration.