Raise and Promotion Budget Planner

Raise & Promotion Budget Planner

Plan employee raises and promotions without losing sight of your payroll budget.

Compensation planning can quickly become complicated when you're balancing employee performance, merit increases, promotions, payroll costs, and an overall budget.

The Raise & Promotion Budget Planner gives HR professionals and business leaders an organized Excel system for modeling employee increases, comparing merit scenarios, tracking approvals, and seeing the total impact on payroll before final decisions are made.

Plan Raises Employee by Employee

For each employee, track:

• Employee ID
• Employee name
• Department
• Job title
• Current salary
• Performance rating
• Promotion status
• Promotion increase percentage
• Proposed merit percentage
• Merit increase dollars
• Promotion increase dollars
• Proposed salary
• Total increase percentage
• Total budget impact
• Budget-guide status
• Approval decision

Performance-Based Merit Planning

Use employee performance ratings from 1 through 5 to automatically calculate proposed merit increases.

The workbook uses customizable performance multipliers so higher or lower performance ratings can adjust the selected base merit rate.

You control the assumptions.

Plan Promotions Separately

Identify employees being considered for promotion and apply a separate promotion increase.

Set a default promotion percentage for your organization or override the percentage for an individual employee when needed.

The workbook automatically calculates the promotion cost and incorporates it into the employee's proposed salary and overall payroll impact.

Compare Three Merit Scenarios

See how different merit strategies affect payroll before making final decisions.

The Summary page automatically compares:

Conservative Scenario
Target Scenario
Investment Scenario

For each scenario, see:

✓ Base merit percentage
✓ Merit cost
✓ Promotion cost
✓ Total increase cost
✓ Resulting payroll

This allows leadership to evaluate different compensation strategies without rebuilding the plan.

Monitor Your Overall Payroll Budget

Set an Overall Budget Cap and see how your proposed increases compare.

The workbook automatically shows:

• Current payroll
• Selected total increase
• Selected increase percentage
• Number of employees
• Budget remaining—or amount over budget

Automatic Budget Guide

Each employee's total proposed increase is automatically compared against your overall budget guideline.

Employees are identified as:

Within Guide

or

Above Guide

This gives HR and leadership a quick way to identify increases that may require additional review.

Track Final Decisions

Use the built-in approval workflow to classify proposed increases as:

Approved
Pending
Hold
Declined

The Summary page automatically shows the number of employees and payroll impact associated with each decision category.

Decision Checks

Quickly see:

✓ Number of employees above the budget guide
✓ Number of promotions proposed
✓ Budget remaining or amount over budget

Customize Your Compensation Strategy

The Assumptions page allows you to control:

• Selected base merit rate
• Overall budget cap
• Default promotion increase
• Planning year
• Currency
• Performance-rating multipliers
• Conservative merit scenario
• Target merit scenario
• Investment merit scenario

Change the assumptions and the planner automatically recalculates the results.

Great For:

HR professionals • Small and midsize businesses • Business owners • Finance teams • Compensation planning • Department leaders • Organizations without a dedicated compensation-planning system

What's Included

3 integrated Excel worksheets:

✓ Raise & Promotion Summary
✓ Employee Raise Planner
✓ Compensation Planning Assumptions

Sample employees are included for demonstration and can be replaced with your own workforce.

Digital Product

This is a downloadable Microsoft Excel workbook with built-in formulas and automated compensation calculations. No physical product will be shipped.

Model the increases. Compare the scenarios. Control the budget. Make more informed compensation decisions.

Important: This workbook is a compensation-planning and budgeting tool. It does not determine appropriate compensation, pay equity, market competitiveness, legal compliance, or whether a particular raise or promotion should be approved. Employers remain responsible for their compensation practices and applicable employment laws.