Defining Zero-Based Budgeting

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

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.

The budget process is a powerful planning tool for government to make important resource decisions. According the Carney and Schoenfeld‘s article on How to read a Budget, an operating budget is a reflection of government’s financial plans. When a budget is

3. Explain two methods that can be used in order to identify realistic estimations when developing a budget. [2.2]

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).

Capital planning and budgeting is a very vital piece in the Public Budgeting System process. It is an essential implement in the financial management practice and is effective in both public and private organizations. It is the method which consists of the determination and the evaluation of the investments and the possible expenses by an organization. As explicate by Lee, Johnson, & Joyce (2008), capital budgets help in determining how much of each form of investment is needed, and it supports an organization in assessing the available revenue which includes loans is required to finance those investments (p. 475). Capital budgeting is a central part of the universal

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

According to the West Virginia state constitution, the body in charge of the county finances is the County Commissions in the state, specifically stating, “…(having) the superintendence and administration of the internal police and fiscal affairs of their counties, including the establishment and regulation of roads, ways, bridges, public landings, ferries and mills, with authority to lay and disburse the county levies.” However, the constitution doesn’t say how the counties are to do this. Jefferson County, the subject of my study, is the only county in the State of West Virginia to use Zero Based Budgeting. Zero based budgeting is a budgeting method where all expenses have to be justified for each new period, because they are reset to 0.

The central challenge that budget developers encounter is predicting what the future holds for the internal business and external factors. Reading the future is something that can never be done with perfect precision. The fast pace of technological change, the complexities of global competition and world events make developing effective budgets both more difficult and more important.

Most entities and organization create budgets as a guide for controlling its spending, prediction of profit, and it expenditure as they progress toward a set goal. Budget involves pulling resources together to achieve a specific goal. According to Gapenski (2006), budgeting is an offshoot in a planning process. A basic managerial accounting tool use in holding planning and control functions together is referred to as set of budgets (p. 255). One major setback manager or budget developer encounter is trying to design a future, a process that cannot be created with the precision just right. This article highlights some financial management

In this report I will discuss the difficulties that newly relegated Burnley football club faces when implementing budgetary strategies. I aim to illustrate how financial planning and more specifically Zero-Based budgeting can enhance a clubs management of finances and create financial stability. Equally, I will try and present how variance analysis can be used to measure the success of budgetary projections within organisations and more specifically within the sports industry.

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.

In developing an annual budget accompanies may choose to adopt either top down budgeting approach or bottom up budgeting approach. In the finance ministry bottom down budgeting was a traditional way used in budget formulation. Top down budgeting came in the 1990s as a motivation to curb the fiscal deficits in which it lead to fiscal crisis in other countries. Top down budgeting was found that it helps and manages well the fiscal deficit efficiently unlike bottom up budgeting approach. Countries like Denmark, Korea Sweden, Australia, Netherlands, and Chile etc actively use top down budgeting because it helps in getting information for the evaluation of new initiatives and also in reviewing of programs for monitoring purposes. Sweden adopted top down budgeting approach because of the series of huge fiscal deficits it used to incur and it came to be that top down budgeting saved them. Top down budgeting is advantageous since it is done multiyear unlike bottom down budgeting which is annually. Top down Budgeting saves on time since it has delegated authority to take care of the budgeting process unlike Bottom down approach which is time consuming. Bottom up approach ignores economic forecast since it involves ministry by ministry analysis unlike top down approach which focuses on economic forecast as it is bases more in fiscal analysis. In top down budgeting there is ownership of proposal whereby the ownership is joint unlike bottom up approach where the ownership proposal is specific. We are able to see that top down budgeting is more advantageous to use in budgeting approach. Countries like Netherlands, Chile and Canada have independent bodies for economic forecast. Since Top down budgeting successes is seen in the office

The keen competition requires companies to consider the cost variable. But traditional budgeting method separates the cost into variable and fixed, put the emphasis on the variable cost and consider the fixed cost implacable.