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UdemyBestseller on UdemyFinance & AccountingPaid courseAll LevelsCertificate

Financial Planning & Analysis: Building a Company's Budget (Udemy.com)

Learn the Fundamentals of Financial Planning and Position Your Career for Success!

Created by: 365 Careers

Last updated August 2022

Our take

Based on the ratings of 18,245 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in August 2022. No course pays to be reviewed.

This is a short, focused course on how a company builds its budget. Antoniya, a finance manager with more than 10 years in FP&A teams, teaches it for 365 Careers. The syllabus shows eight sections and 43 lectures over about 4.5 hours. After a quick accounting refresher, much of the time goes to one case study, Henry's Hats. You forecast revenue, plan production and costs, estimate working capital, roll forward fixed assets, and finish with a budgeted income statement and balance sheet.

Reviewers keep coming back to the same points. The explanations are clear, nothing is assumed, and the course moves from basics to practice at a steady pace. One student liked how the three financial statements were explained from scratch. Another said it clarified that credit sales and purchases explain the gap between profit and cash. The complaints are small. A 3-star reviewer wanted more on wider topics like LBOs and called the case work incomplete for real jobs. Out of roughly 18,000 ratings, only about 330 are one or two stars.

The main catch is age. The last update was August 2022, and the course lists Excel 2010 to 2016, so menus may look different on a current version. It is also narrow by design: budgeting, not full financial modeling or valuation. For a beginner who wants the budgeting process in a few sittings, it is a safe pick with about 72,000 students behind it. It is pitched at people with no experience, so working FP&A staff may find little new.

Best forFinance newcomers who want to watch one company's budget get built step by step in Excel.
Skip it ifYou want LBO, valuation or market-level analysis, or need software newer than Excel 2016.

Pros

  • Assumes nothing and explains the three financial statements from scratch
  • One running case, Henry's Hats, takes a budget from sales forecast to balance sheet
  • Short at about 4.5 hours, so it is easy to actually finish
  • Course challenge offers personalized feedback on your work, per the description

Cons

  • Last updated August 2022, and it lists Excel 2010 to 2016
  • One 3-star reviewer called the case work incomplete for real-world jobs
  • Only two quizzes and no coding exercises, so practice is mostly the case study
A very well-structured course that covers budget processes at the appropriate level of detail. The explanations are clear, and the examples are relevant and effective in reinforcing key concepts.
SEBASTIAN BICELLI, a student

Fits true beginners with no finance background. It needs only Excel and starts with accounting basics.

Featured in our guide: The 10 Best Finance and Accounting Courses on Udemy in 2026

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What you will learn

  • Prepare a Company's Budget from Scratch
  • Learn to differentiate between Top-Down and Bottom-up Techniques
  • Prepare the Revenue Budget of a Company
  • Project a Company's Planned Level of Production
  • Calculate Net Cash Flow
  • Project Various Types of Expenditures
  • Estimate Working Capital Needs
  • Carry out a Fixed Asset Rollforward
  • Build an Integrated Financial Model
  • Learn to Build Financial Statements in Excel

Course content

8 sections · 43 lectures · 4.5 hours of video 2 quizzes, 4 articles

  1. 1Course Introduction 1 free preview1 lecture · 5 min
  2. 2Getting Started with Financial Planning and Analysis 1 free preview1 lecture · 6 min
  3. 3The Accounting Framework 1 free preview7 lectures · 1 quiz · 42 min
  4. 4Mechanics of the Budgeting Process 1 free preview11 lectures · 1 quiz · 42 min
  5. 5Time for a Case Study: Henry's Hats 2 free previews15 lectures · 1.4 hours
  6. 6Completing Henry's Hats' Master Budget 1 free preview5 lectures · 31 min
  7. 7Course Challenge2 lectures · 2 min
  8. 8Who Does What in Finance? (optional)1 lecture · 1 hour

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • People Who Want a Successful Career in Finance
  • Anyone Who Wants to Learn How to Create a Corporate Budget
  • People who are ambitious and want to learn faster than their peers

What you need before you start

  • Absolutely no experience is required. We start from the basics and gradually build up your knowledge. Everything is in the course.
  • You will need Microsoft Excel 2010, 2013, or 2016

How it compares

Against the other 376 rated Udemy courses in Finance & Accounting on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 68% of them
  • Reviews18,245#9 of 377 by number of reviews
  • Length4.5 hoursshorter than 52% of them
  • Last updatedAugust 2022earlier than 80% of them

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Course Description

Looking to boost your income as a financial analyst?   

Looking to acquire valuable skills that will set you apart from the competition?   

You’ve come to the right place!   

Financial Planning & Analysis: Building a Company’s Budget from Scratch guides you through the core principles of financial planning and helps you understand how a company prepares a budget. The video lessons touch on several technical topics such as revenue forecasting, cost planning, working capital development, fixed assets roll-forward, and cash flow calculation. Besides that, we will discuss why firms need budgets, which are the financial statements that a company uses to create its budget, what types of budgets are there, which are the main techniques used in financial planning, who is involved in the preparation of a budget, and who is interested in the final numbers that are signed-off in the budget. Specializing in these topics will turn you into a valuable, indispensable member of any company’s Finance team.   

Experienced Instructor   

Antoniya is a Finance Manager with more than 10 years of experience in FP&A teams. She is the right teacher for you because she knows how to explain complicated topics in an easy-to-comprehend manner. Antoniya is passionate about teaching and happy to answer your questions.   

Well structured     

This course shows it all, with no steps skipped. The lessons are easy, time-efficient, and well structured. We have used a number of teaching methods! Video lectures, Theory, Real business Examples, Animations, Quiz Questions, Case Studies, a Course Challenge ... you name it!

Why should you learn about FP&A and Budgeting?   

One of the most important activities in Corporate Finance

  • A key topic in interviews, especially when hiring people with a few years of experience

  • Budgeting is great for networking – you communicate with some of the most important individuals within a company

  • Salary. FP&A specialists enjoy a very well-paid career

  • Promotions. Financial Planning Analysts acquire valuable technical skills and are well-known throughout the organization, which makes them the leading candidates for senior roles

  • Growth. Forecasting what will occur in the future is always interesting and full of surprises

Interactive experience   

Here comes the fun part!   

We have a challenge for you! After each major block, you will be tasked with solving a problem. You will:   

  • Predict a company’s sales

  • Create a budget for the costs that will support the expected level of sales

  • Work on a Production Budget

  • Calculate expected Net Cash Flows

  • Prepare a budgeted Income Statement and Balance Sheet

Sounds interesting, right?   

At the end of the challenge, you will send us the work that you’ve done, and we will send back personalized feedback to you. This makes for an interactive student experience that optimizes what you will learn from the course.

What makes this course different from the rest of the Finance courses that are out there?   

  • High quality of production – Full HD video and animations (This isn’t a collection of boring lectures!)

  • Knowledgeable instructor (experience working for companies like 3M and Coca-Cola)

  • Specialized training – the only course that covers this topic on Udemy

  • Extensive Case Studies that will help you reinforce everything you’ve learned

  • Course Challenge: Solve our Course Challenge and make this course an interactive experience

  • Excellent support: If you don’t understand a concept, or you simply want to drop us a line, you’ll receive an answer within 1 business day

  • Dynamic: We don’t want to waste your time! The instructor keeps up a very good pace throughout the whole course.

Please don’t forget that the course comes with Udemy’s 30-day, unconditional money-back-in-full guarantee. And why not give such a guarantee, when we are convinced that the course will provide a ton of value for you?

Click the 'Buy now' button to get access to the course and boost your career!

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Instructor Details

365 Careers

365 Careers is the #1 best-selling provider of business, finance, data science and AI courses on Udemy. The company’s courses have been taken by more than 4,000,000 students in 210 countries. People working at world-class firms like Apple, PayPal, and Citibank have completed 365 Careers trainings.    

Currently, 365 focuses on the following topics on Udemy:    1) Finance – Finance fundamentals, Financial modeling in Excel, Valuation, Accounting, Capital budgeting, Financial statement analysis (FSA), Investment banking (IB), Leveraged buyout (LBO), Financial planning and analysis (FP&A), Corporate budgeting, applying Python for Finance, Tesla valuation case study, CFA, ACCA, and CPA

2) Data science – Statistics, Mathematics, Probability, SQL, Python programming, Python for Finance, Business Intelligence, R, Machine Learning, TensorFlow, Tableau, the integration of SQL and Tableau, the integration of SQL, Python, Tableau, Power BI, Credit Risk Modeling, and Credit Analytics, Data literacy, Product Management, Pandas, Numpy, Python Programming, Data Strategy

3) Entrepreneurship – Business Strategy, Management and HR Management, Marketing, Decision Making, Negotiation, and Persuasion, Tesla's Strategy and Marketing

4) Office productivity – Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Outlook

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Reviews

4.6

18,245 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By SEBASTIAN BICELLI on 8/31/2026

A very well-structured course that covers budget processes at the appropriate level of detail. The explanations are clear, and the examples are relevant and effective in reinforcing key concepts.

By Iapix Beraud on 8/18/2026

This is a great course! This course does not assume something is obvious and makes introductury definitions and examples. This was particularly helpful when going over the 3-basic financial statements.

By Lukmon Folarin on 8/17/2026

I gained additional insight that credit transactions (customers and vendors) is what causes the difference between profit in the income statement and net cashflow (cash balance) in the balance sheet.

By Nidhi Verma on 7/6/2026

This course explains Corporate Finance and Financial Planning & Analysis in very simple, easy-to-understand language with clear logic behind every concept. The tutor teaches exceptionally well, making even complex topics like budgeting practical and easy to follow. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to build a strong foundation in FP&A.

By Loveena Singaluri on 5/25/2026

I truly loved the way the course has been explained in lay man's language. The visuals presentation makes it all the more interesting and captures our complete attention to the course!! Kudos!! Truly enjoyable learning !

By Sonali Nanda on 5/20/2026

Loved the last part- Optional business case study which involved beginning to end of the life cycle of a Company. There were many instances where we understood the role of different players of the Company. Insightful and a thumbs up to the last part of the course.

By Tiger Nikos on 4/27/2026

I think I would rate this course a 5 if I were newer to the field. However, even though I am not a beginner, I still find this course really helpful because it presents the lay of the land of the Finance job so well.

By Mahek Madani on 3/27/2026

There could be much more teaching for all sectors, Market at large , LBO, etc. all case and sections learning felt incomplete for knowledge and Practical World(Not Job Driven).

By Nthabiseng Seleki on 2/23/2026

The course is packed with valuable insights and presented in a clear, practical way. The examples are easy to understand and make applying the concepts much simpler. Overall, it’s an excellent course for anyone looking to strengthen their budgeting skills.

By Joana Balagot on 2/8/2026

I really enjoyed this course and learned a lot from it. The lessons were clear, well‑organized, and easy to follow, even when covering more complex topics. I appreciated how the instructor explained concepts with real examples and broke everything down into practical steps I can apply immediately in my work. Overall, this course exceeded my expectations and gave me exactly the clarity and confidence I was looking for. Highly recommended.

By Martha Judith Villegas on 11/15/2020

The Budget is an important part of a company.

By Ji Hyun Jin on 11/15/2020

Great course to learn what FP&A is in a short time! Course challenge is helpful to practice what's been learned.

Showing 12 of 318 reviews

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Overall Score : 92 / 100