Budgeting is an imperative tool in management. Budgeting is beneficial because it helps companies to reach their goals that they set in order to remain operational. “Most companies prepare long term strategic plans spanning 5 to 10 years. They then fine-tune them into medium-term and short-term plans” (932). Long-term strategic plans let us know about possible product advancements, investments, markets and help us prepare for what is likely to happen in the distant future. Medium-term plans and short-term plans (short-term plans are called budgets and last for the duration of one year) are plans that are actually acted upon day to day. These are budgets that are in motion and have their own goals. A budget is defined as a formal statement of a company’s future plans (932). Managers should arrange a budget because there will be a greater chance of a company’s success and the success of the manager. There are many advantages to having a budget. A budget has the capability to focus on imminent prospects and threats to an organization. If a company is focusing on its future by making use of a budget, it will be less probable that managers will drift away from it. Budgeting has a control aspect to it. A company will be able to compare and contrast actual budgeted performance to a control; this takes into consideration company, economic and industry dynamics. Likewise, this advantage of budgeting allows management to recognize issues within the company and
By managing the budget the organization will be better prepared for the financial forecasts, which are the company’s future expenses. Some strategies and tools that will assist with managing the budget are zero based, activity based, performance based, cost
A budget plan is the most effective way to keep the business and its finances on track. It gives you the opportunity to review the business’ performance and any factors that are affecting or may affect your business. Also to manage your money more effectively, allocate appropriate resources, monitor performance, meet planned objectives and plan for the future.
For example interest rates, the cost of raw materials including fuel, the number of sales or orders that we make and in turn all of these rely on other factors. The best therefore that can be done when developing a budget is to look at all the factors that are likely to affect the budget and decide how to take account of each one. If there is a previous budget (last year or last month) then it is sensible to look at how this has been achieved or not as the case may be, and what factors affected the outcome. If we are looking at monthly budgets it might be a better comparison to look at the same month twelve months ago as well as the previous months. The more factors we take into consideration when estimating a budget, the more accurate our budget will be.
This research paper is a brief discussion of budget management analysis. Budgeting is the key to financial management, and is the key to translates an organization goals or plan into money. Budgeting is a rough estimate of how much a company will need to get their work done, and provides the basis for evaluating performance, a source of motivation, coordinating business activities, a tool for management communication and instructions to employees. Without a budget an organization would be like a driver, driving blinded without instructions or any sense of direction, that’s how important a budget is to every organization and individual likewise (Clark, 2005).
Budgeting systems turn managers’ perspectives forward and by looking to the future and planning, managers are able to anticipate and correct potential problems before they arise (Horngren, Foster & Datar, 2000). Through budgeting, management can plan ahead and maintain enough cash to pay creditors, to have adequate raw materials to meet production requirements, and to have sufficient finished goods to meet expected sales (Kieso, 2002).
A budget is an instrument used to help managers ensure that the resources used effectively and proficiently toward the goals of an organization. A budget projection can be made on a yearly base depending on previous year or existing one. They can further be broken down quarterly or monthly depending on it use. Generating a budget is complex undertaking, and for a budget to be effective the organization ought to follow it strictly. However, no matter how closely a business follows their guidelines there will always be some form of variances. The organization should expect a few variances and be able to work these discrepancies in any budget
A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.
Based on the master budget, there have something wrong and unclear. All the numbers are the same, evenly quarter two have more sale than other quarter, at least less 30% than quarter two. We can easy to recognize with a few changes and we can achieve a goal $1.000.000
Budgeting is the systematic method of allocating financial, physical, and human resources to achieve an organization’s strategic goals. Budgets are utilized by for-profit and non-profit organizations to monitor the progress towards the goals, assist in the control of spending, and help predict cash flow for the organization.
A budget, as defined by Hilton (2009 pg 348), is a detailed plan, expressed in quantitative terms that specifies how resources will be acquired and used during a specific period of time. A budget is a financial document utilized to project future income and expenses. A budget is based on how much you make in income and what your monthly expenses are. Budgets evaluate performances while the plan is what is going to happen or refine what you want to accomplish by thinking ahead. The purpose of having a budget is it improves efficiency, assigns responsibility, provides direction, and helps businesses plans and control finances. Managers use the budget as a
Another advantage is control and evaluation. It helps to think about how to correct company’s problems, if they have them. Motivation is another important advantage. Budget can motivate to reach the goals. It also can force managers to think and plan for the future. Budgeting helps to ensure that everyone in the organisation is pulling in the same direction. The budgeting process provides a means of allocating resources to those parts of the organisation where they can be used most effectively.
Budget formulation and use are tools that guide many decision making strategies in business. The measures that are least effective could create an avalanche of catastrophic events that can negatively impact the decision making strategies. It is in the best interest of the pertinent parties to draft an operating budget based on a collective set of information relating to organizational vision and mission. Ineffective measures can be catastrophic based on the foundation for measures used in creating the budget. Among the many issues organizations face that relates to creating an effective operating budget results from poor
Budgeting is crucial in the well-being of a company especially the financial health status of a company. In fact, no professionally managed firm would fail to budget, since the budget establishes what is authorized, how to plan for purchasing contracts and hiring, and indicates how much financing is needed to support planned activity. It is routine for a company to budget for its expenses. Expense budgets act as a guideline of how much revenue a company would require keeping the activities running. It is used to set the company’s targets for a certain period.
The 20’s century saw the use of budget involve due to a change in the environment. Indeed the control of output used to be obtained by the dissemination of tasks and so traditional budgets were very much highlighted, with a significant top-down influence. As an example of the importance of budget in the 1970’s IBM had about 3,000 people involved in their budgetary process. During the same period, the oil crisis brought concerns about rising in costs and led to the introduction of zero-based budgeting (ZBB), which can lower cost by avoiding blanket increases or decreases to a prior period’s budget. The increase in business uncertainties was in discrepancy with the stifling effect of fixed plans, promoting the use of rolling budgets. The 1990’s saw the growing influence of shareholders and steered the focus on a budget that included a wider view of organisation results, answering the investment community for quarterly updates on results and expectations (Bill Ryan, 2005). Budgets then started being used as a communication tool between the financial community and the organisation, allowing the corporation to be integrated in the capital market. Moreover companies started using flexible budgets rather than static budgets as nowadays various levels of activities can be observed in most organisations. The use of flexible budgets then enables firms to be consistent with their new environment and the market.
Budget and budgetary control practices are undeniably indispensable as organizations routinely go about their business activities and operations. These organizations are constantly on the alert on how actual levels of performance agree with planned or budgeted performance. A budget expresses a plan in monetary terms. It is prepared and approved prior to a particular budgeted period and explicitly may show the income, expenditure and the capital to be employed by organizations in achieving their goals and objectives.