A blank corporate communications budget template, from cost units to exit dates

This corporate communications budget template is deliberately blank. It is designed for Cedar Vale Engineering Ltd's fictional England site-consolidation announcement, but a buyer must replace that scope with its own authorised job. It contains no price, rate, salary, quantity, VAT outcome or expected return.

Copy the tables into a controlled workbook. Give it an owner, version, access list and approval date before entering financial information.

Scope and evidence header

Field	Buyer entry
Legal buyer and cost centre
Authorised communication job
England audience or operation affected
Source-copy and approval IDs
Delivery routes included
Explicit exclusions
Budget period and timezone
Manual baseline version
Finance and tax reviewers
Evidence cut-off and recheck date

The manual baseline needs the same scope as any external option. Do not compare a partial supplier fee with the buyer's full internal route.

Line-item schedule

Cost category	Currency	VAT status	Unit	Quantity	Period or term	Inclusions	Exclusions	Evidence source and date	Assumption owner
Discovery and research
Factual and claim evidence
Writing, editing and production
Accessible formats and testing
Rights and licensing
Legal, privacy and security review
Publication, media and monitoring
Correction and incident work
Implementation and migration
Support, renewal and exit

HMRC's VAT-record guidance covers invoices, purchase and sales records, adjustments and credit or debit notes. The tax reviewer should attach the applicable document and record the treatment; the template must not infer it.

Cash timing and authority

Add a payment schedule beside the cost table. Leave the dates and amounts empty, but identify the purchase-order owner, invoice event, acceptance evidence, payment term, renewal notice and person allowed to approve a change. A cash-flow entry should point back to one cost line so that finance can reconcile commitments, invoices, credits and payments without counting the same obligation twice.

The GOV.UK invoice requirements identify general invoice fields and additional information for VAT invoices. They do not establish what Cedar Vale owes or may recover. Record disputed, credited and cancelled items as separate states, with the supporting document and decision owner.

Rights and access schedule

List each text, image, recording, font, data set and software component separately. The official copyright overview explains categories of protected work but does not establish ownership in a specific asset. Add owner, licence, territory, duration, permitted edits, attribution, renewal and withdrawal fields.

For each user task, record the required format, test method, tester, correction route and continuing availability. GOV.UK's accessible communication formats guidance is government guidance rather than a private-sector certificate or budget. It can prompt the buyer to budget for usable alternatives.

Assumptions and scenarios

Input	Lower case	Planning case	Higher case	Evidence	Confidence	Switching value	Next check
Eligible quantity
Internal labour
Supplier usage
Correction demand
Incident or recovery work
Exit activity

These are scenarios, not forecasts. Document why each range is relevant and stop if a change in scope makes the original unit incomparable.

Approval and change log

Create pass, fail or unresolved fields for finance, tax, procurement, legal, privacy, PECR, security, accessibility, rights, employment and corporate approval. A lower total cannot compensate for a failed gate.

Supplier assurance may add evidence and remediation work. NCSC supply-chain guidance covers contract, reporting, review and response principles, not a standard price. Record only buyer-required work.

Finish with change ID, date, requester, affected line, old evidence, new evidence, approver and rollback decision. The template becomes usable only when every material blank is completed from a current record or marked unresolved with a stop condition.