rolling budget definition

A rolling budget adds a future accounting period’s budget to replace a budget for an accounting period that has past. For example, a company’s 2024 annual budget will become a rolling budget if in February 2024 it adds the budget for January 2025 to replace the January 2024 budget. At that point the rolling budget will cover February 1, 2024 through January 31, 2025. After February 2024 occurs, the rolling budget will consist of the 12 monthly budgets of March 2024 through February 2025.

The rolling budget is also referred to as a rolling horizon budget, a continuous budget, or a perpetual budget.