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Small Business Finance: Budget and Pay That Fit, 220+ Tools
402 students
Small Business Finance: Budget and Pay That Fit, 220+ Tools
Payroll grows faster than profit? Small business budgeting, payroll, job grades, bonuses and benefits that pay back
Last updated 10/2026
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Keep payroll and profit in balance: take 220+ templates, matrices, checklists and procedures in 42 downloadable resources
- Build an efficiency-driven small business finance model and connect mission, processes and goals
- Turn strategy into budgets, KPIs and profitable decisions
- Build a bottom-up budget, including payroll, development and hidden costs
- Set the price of each role with job analysis and salary market reviews
- Design bonuses, benefits and recognition that the business can afford
- Evaluate jobs, build grades and salary ranges, and protect pay equity
- Measure benefits cost and value and design a flexible benefits budget
- See tools on screen, including Google Sheets, Payscale, HiBob, Deel, Workday and Yahoo Finance
- Learn with Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy: 1,800,000+ enrollments, 170,000 students, about 200 books on Amazon
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Course content
14 sections • 41 lectures • 21h 3m total length
Requirements
- You run or manage a small business, or plan to
- No finance or HR background required
- A spreadsheet such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
In a small business, payroll is usually the largest cost, and it is set one conversation at a time. This course is about the cost of work, not the price of what you sell. Here are 226 tools to budget it: 143 ready-to-use templates, matrices, checklists, procedures and question lists, 66 models and methods, 15 services shown on screen and 2 working files.
Open a lecture, take the template, and apply it to your own budget and payroll.
Why small businesses lose money on pay
Salaries are agreed person by person, bonuses are promised in good months and kept in bad ones, and benefits are added because a competitor has them. Nobody connects payroll to the budget, the strategy or the market, so costs grow faster than profit and fairness questions appear at the worst time.
What changes after this course
Your budget is built bottom-up and linked to strategy and KPIs. Each role has a price based on the market, pay sits in grades and ranges, bonuses and benefits are designed to pay back, and you know the full cost of your people.
What is inside: 226 tools, counted lecture by lecture
You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.
- 42 downloadable resources: lecture presentations plus 2 working files: a profit to cash sheet and the Radford job catalog with leveling charts
- 143 ready-to-use tools inside the presentations:
- 45 templates and sample documents: recruitment budget, hourly pay calculation, sales commission calculation, benefits budget and coverage report
- 27 scorecards, rubrics and matrices: benefits cost-effectiveness matrix, merit increase matrix, salary structure cost projection, project deadline and budget bonuses
- 22 checklists: payroll budgeting, bonus budgeting, benefits budgeting, overhead budgeting
- 21 step-by-step procedures: operational cash flow forecasting, HR budgeting, bonus system design, salary survey data aging
- 18 question lists and scripts: overhead budgeting, compensation philosophy design, benefits satisfaction survey, variable compensation design
- 9 formulas and metric sets and 1 other working tool: financial KPIs, hiring needs calculation, HR automation cost-benefit calculation, salary survey statistical measures
- 66 models and methods explained with examples: rolling budget, responsibility accounting, cash conversion cycle, WorldatWork Total Rewards
- 15 services shown on screen, including Google Sheets, Payscale, HiBob, Deel, Workday and Yahoo Finance
Where the tools are
Small business finance (4 sections, 35 tools). Efficiency-driven finance, mission, process chains, budgets, KPIs, lean finance and scaling.
Budget and payroll (2 sections, 53 tools). A bottom-up budget, payroll, development and hidden costs.
Pricing roles and rewards (3 sections, 90 tools). Job analysis, salary market reviews, bonuses, benefits, recognition and referrals.
Grades and pay structure (2 sections, 73 tools). Job evaluation, grades, pay equity, salary ranges and pay policy.
Benefits (2 sections, 31 tools). Cost, value, flexible benefits, strategy and budget.
Who is teaching
I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.
When I analysed benefits at Wargaming, the company spent roughly 10% of payroll on them, because it was building the number one employer brand in the country. Some companies spend only 3%. The difference is not generosity, it is a decision about what the money should achieve, and a small business needs to make the same decision on a smaller scale.
How to use the course
Start with the finance and budget sections, then set role prices, grades and bonuses for your own team. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.
What is included
- 41 lectures across 14 sections, 21 hours
- 42 downloadable resources: lecture presentations and 2 working files
- 226 tools across the lessons, including 15 services shown on screen
- Lifetime access to all materials
- Active instructor support in the Q&A section
- A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Where to start
Write down your monthly payroll as a share of revenue for the last six months, then open the budget lecture. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.
Who this course is for:
- Small business owners and founders
- General managers of small companies
- Finance and HR generalists in small teams
- Managers responsible for a payroll budget
- Entrepreneurs planning their first hires