An expense budget is the planned operating spending over a defined period, typically annual with monthly granularity. It's broken into categories like headcount and benefits (the largest), marketing and sales, infrastructure and tools, G&A (legal, accounting, rent, software), and sometimes R&D as a separate category. The budget is used for both forward planning (what will we spend?) and ongoing control (are we tracking to plan?), serving as an operational anchor that connects strategic decisions (what we're investing in) to financial outcomes (burn, runway, profitability). It is the operational counterpart to the revenue forecast.
The standard expense budget categories:
Headcount and benefits (typically 60-80% of to...