Marketing automation budget template: five-sheet outline

This marketing automation budget template outline specifies five sheets for the budget evidence in a platform review; it is not a downloadable or copyable workbook. An England-based buyer should populate it from current quotes, internal payroll and delivery plans, then obtain tax and accounting review. Copying a benchmark would hide the organisation's volumes, VAT position and work.

What to take away

Sheet 1: assumptions and controls

Create one row per assumption with these columns: ID, description, currency, unit, period, base input, source and date, owner, inclusion, exclusion, low case, high case, review trigger and stop condition. Assign separate IDs to supplier quantities, exchange rates, staff time, VAT treatment and outcome inputs. Never overwrite an old assumption; close it and add a dated replacement.

Every later sheet inherits these controls. Where a sheet is not a ratio, mark numerator and denominator as not applicable rather than leaving the fields blank.

Supplier pages can define candidate units. For example, Microsoft's UK Customer Insights record identifies tenant, Unified People and Interacted People capacity. Mailchimp's GBP plan comparison uses contact and send limits and warns that non-US dollar displays are estimates. Use the signed quotation, not these web pages, as the amount approved for purchase.

Cost the licence and usage rows against the platforms the organisation is actually evaluating. Candidates commonly priced in this template include HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, Dotdigital, Brevo, Mailchimp and Microsoft Customer Insights. Cost drivers differ between them — some tier by contacts or profiles, others by send volume or platform capacity — so take each supplier's own unit from its current quotation rather than from a list page.

Sheet 2: cash calendar

Columns should be calendar month, payee, gross invoice, VAT on invoice, payment date, payroll cash, other cash, VAT refund received, net monthly movement and evidence ID. Do not record an expected recovery as cash before its forecast receipt period.

HMRC's reclaim rules require eligibility and supporting records, and identify restrictions. Its Cash Accounting Scheme overview says qualifying users normally reclaim purchase VAT when they pay the supplier. The appointed tax adviser must set the organisation's method and timing.

Keep the paperwork behind each line: the supplier's VAT invoice, evidence that it was paid and the input tax claimed on the organisation's VAT return, which is made on form VAT 100. For HMRC guidance on VAT records and input tax, the appointed tax adviser should also check VAT Notice 700, The VAT Guide. Store these against the evidence ID in the cash calendar so every recovery figure can be traced.

Sheet 3: economic-cost register

Use work-package rows for licence and usage, discovery, implementation, integrations, migration, training, operations, support, assurance, parallel running and exit. Add internal hours by role, the approved loaded hourly rate and any recognised displaced-work cost.

Equation: period economic cost = external costs net of confirmed recoverable VAT + the sum of role hours multiplied by approved loaded rates + accountant-approved allocations and opportunity cost.

Sheet 4: accounting bridge

Reconcile cash paid to management cost and financial-statement treatment without deciding that treatment in the template. The FRC's FRS 102 page identifies the current full edition and its effective-date information. The accountant should record the applicable framework, recognition decision, useful period if relevant, reviewer and approval date.

Columns for this sheet: cash-flow line, management-cost line, ledger or statement line, applicable framework, recognition decision, period covered, reviewer and approval date, each carried with an evidence ID. Add inclusion and exclusion notes, owner and sources, sensitivity fields and a stop-or-review condition as sheet 1 requires, so the accountant's judgement sits on the same row as the amount it affects.

Sheet 5: change log and sign-off

Record who changed an input, why, the old and new value, evidence and the effect on cash or economic cost. Sign-off: finance owner, accountant, tax adviser, data-protection reviewer and commercial owner. The data-protection reviewer should record the applicable UK GDPR assessment and escalation route to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's national data-protection authority.

Columns for the change log: change ID, date, input changed, previous value, new value, reason, evidence ID, cash effect, economic-cost effect and approver. The sign-off block carries one row per approver with role, name, date, scope approved and any condition attached.

Reopen approval when price units, volumes, contract scope, tax treatment or implementation dates change. The workbook built from this outline is complete when every material cell has a source or a stop condition, not when every cell contains a number.

Before you act

Common questions

What should I do if an assumption changes?

Never overwrite an old assumption. Close it and add a dated replacement. Every later sheet inherits these controls. Where a sheet is not a ratio, mark numerator and denominator as not applicable rather than leaving the fields blank.

How do I treat VAT in the cash calendar?

Do not record an expected recovery as cash before its forecast receipt period. HMRC's reclaim rules require eligibility and supporting records, and identify restrictions. The appointed tax adviser must set the organisation's method and timing.

What makes the template complete?

The workbook built from this outline is complete when every material cell has a source or a stop condition, not when every cell contains a number. Reopen approval when price units, volumes, contract scope, tax treatment or implementation dates change.