Chapter 4 Budgetary control

The more space you can create between your expenses and your income, the more income you will have to pay down debt and invest. Budgeting is not synonymous with spending as little money as possible or making yourself feel guilty about every purchase. The aim of budgeting is to make sure you’re able to save a little each month, ideally at least 10% of your income, or at the very least, to make sure that you aren’t spending more than you earn.

These include estimations of sales trends (or income), cost trends (or expenses), and the overall outlook of the market for the particular industry or sector. Creating a business budget begins by making some assumptions and financial projections about the upcoming period. However, because companies have multiple needs and wants at the same time, a business budget has many components.

Budget Classifications

If you don’t have any major savings goals (upsizing your living situation, starting your own business, etc.), it’s hard to drum up the motivation to stash away extra cash each month. However, your situation and your attitudes likely will change over time. Thanks to budgeting software, you don’t have to be good at math; you simply have to be able to follow instructions. If you know how to use spreadsheet software, you can make your own ledger.

Once the budget in quantitative terms has been prepared, unit costs can then be allocated to the individual items to arrive at a budget for harvesting in financial terms as shown in table 4.2. BP&F software helps make it easier for finance managers to produce more accurate budgets and perform what-if scenario analysis. The figure below lays out how operating budgets and financial budgets are related within a master budget. In value-proposition budgeting (priority-based budgeting), the company’s financial team evaluates the budget to recognize any unnecessary expenses.

Find New Sources of Income

Changes and challenges can affect the budget and have an impact on a company’s plans. A flexible budget adjusts the cost of goods produced for varying levels of production and is more useful than a static budget, which remains at one amount regardless of the production level. A flexible budget is created at the end of the accounting period, whereas the static budget is created before the fiscal year begins. The bottom-up approach (sometimes also named a self-imposed or participative budget) begins at the lowest level of the company. After senior management has communicated the expected departmental goals, the departments then plans and predicts their sales and estimates the amount of resources needed to reach these goals. This information is communicated to the supervisor, who then passes it on to upper levels of management.

Figure 10.1 shows the general difference between the top-down approach and the bottom-up approach. Another benefit of passing the amount of allowed expenses downward is that the final anticipated bookkeeping articles costs are reduced by the vetting (fact checking and information gathering) process. A master budget refers to a set of financial and operating budgets for a specific accounting period.

What is budgeting, planning and forecasting (BP&F)?

Four rolling budgets should be prepared each 12 months which requires more administrative effort. It is very difficult to prepare an organisation chart clearly defining the authority and responsibility of each individual. Departments are so intermingled and interdependent that it is impossible to draw distinct responsibility lines. For example, material prices are heavily influenced by the purchase manager but material quantities are heavily influenced by production manager.

• Various decision units are identified and made in accordance with the activities of the organisation.
• Just like budgets help people, corporate budgeting help keep businesses stay on track.
• At the end of the fiscal year, collections, disbursements, encumbrances, and payables are reported in year-end financial statements.
• For higher level of management less detailed reports are prepared with more coverage.

Regardless of the budget type, the basic process to create one remains the same. Agencies/departments must understand the relationship between budgeting and accounting and the statutory links between these two fiscal disciplines. For additional information about the relationship and statutory links, refer to the Department of Finance, Budget Analyst Guide. At the end of each period, the current budget numbers and actual performance numbers are compared and adjustments are made if needed.

Understanding Budgeting

Fixed costs along with variable costs may be present in any of these budget configurations. Corporate budgets, on the other hand, deal with the types of expenses businesses typically have. So a corporate budget may include capital expenditures, debt servicing, or payroll. While businesses may have cash reserves, they may not regularly contribute to them out of budgetary funds.

Businesses, governments, and other organizations can also use this budgeting method. Next, create a list of all of your regular monthly expenses. Include fixed expenses, such as rent, mortgage, or insurance. Then, list your variable expenses—the costs that change from month to month. Some examples are food (both groceries and restaurant purchases), gas, and entertainment.