To many people an IT budget consists of the £500 they included in the last funding bid that came through. Although this is usually enough to buy one computer or laptop - and maybe a printer - it doesn't reflect the true costs of setting up and using the IT equipment on a day-to-day basis.

People in the third sector are increasingly familiar with Full Cost Recovery and when budgeting for IT it is useful to consider the Total Cost of Ownership. When purchasing a car, for example, you need to think about running costs such as insurance, road tax, petrol or servicing.

Top Ten Items for Your IT budget

1 Hardware
2 Software
3 Installation and Configuration
4 Maintenance
5 Backup
6 Consumables
7 Insurance
8 Broadband
9 Web Hosting
10 Training

Produced by Mark Walker, ICT Champion for south east England