In New Zealand we were very lax until about 1990 in our timetabling of the budget. In 1990 we introduced a new system. Our financial year starts on July 1 every year and runs until June 30. The legal requirement is that the budget must be presented to Parliament within 30 days of the financial year commencing. So a budget could be presented up to the end of July, but in practice our governments present the budget in May. That is about two months before the end of the financial year. The estimates process then gets under way before the financial year opens. But the estimates process takes about three or four months to run, so the budget isn't actually approved until one or two months into the new financial year.
It's a huge improvement on the system we used to operate under, which was temporary financial authorities for the majority of the year, and then final budget approval about one day before the financial year ended. It has been a major improvement in the way the system works. It works much more prospectively now than it ever did.