Cost Budgeting in the real world

Hi all,

I have a question regarding putting together a good project budget - I work in information technology. It seems to me that if you try to use MS project things could get pretty messy pretty fast as there will capital investments to be apportioned, confidential salary info you may want to hide from the general plan, contingency items and possibly some other non standard costs.

So do people use excel or templates, how does one put a budget together in the real world.

Any examples or advice would be appreciate, or any links to samples.

Appreciate it.

Brian.