The invention is directed to a budget planning system that improves the
accuracy and predictability of budget planning within large organizations
by enabling organizations to reconcile corporate financial models and
organizational targets with detailed spending forecasts. The budgeting
system includes a database that is configured to store data defining a
budgeting model for the organization. The model has a plurality of
hierarchically arranged nodes, each node corresponding to a "contributor"
that either provides forecast data or review data provided by
contributors associated with lower level nodes. The system is configured
to capture target data from a set of financial analysts, capture forecast
data from the contributors and reconcile the target data and the forecast
data according to the model.