Professional Documents
Culture Documents
They are:
Provide structure. A budget is especially useful for giving a company guidance regarding the direction in which it is supposed to be going. Thus, it forms the basis for planning what to do next. A CEO would be well advised to impose a budget on a company that does not have a good sense of direction. Of course, a budget will not provide much structure if the CEO promptly files away the budget and does not review it again until the next year. A budget only provides a significant amount of structure when management refers to it constantly, and judges employee performance based on the expectations outlined within it.
Predict cash flows. A budget is extremely useful in companies that are growing rapidly, that have seasonal sales, or which have irregular sales patterns. These companies have a difficult time estimating how much cash they are likely to have in the near term, which results in periodic cash-related crises. A budget is useful for predicting cash flows, but yields increasingly unreliable results further into the future. Thus, providing a view of cash flows is only a reasonable budgeting objective if it covers the next few months of the budget.
Allocate resources. Some companies use the budgeting process as a tool for deciding where to allocate funds to various activities, such as fixed asset purchases. Though a valid objective, it should be combined with capacity constraint analysis (which is more of an industrial engineering function than a financial function) to determine where resources should really be allocated.
Model scenarios. If a company is faced with a number of possible paths down which it can travel, then you can create a set of budgets, each based on different scenarios, to estimate the financial results of each strategic direction. Though useful, this objective can result in highly unlikely results if management lets itself become overly optimistic in inputting assumptions into the budget model.
Measure performance. A common objective in creating a budget is to use it as the basis for judging employee performance, through the use of variances from the budget. This is a treacherous objective, since employees attempt to modify the budget to make their personal objectives easier to achieve (known as budgetary slack).
such as products or services for consumers. Another kind of result is outcomes, or benefits for consumers, e.g., jobs for workers, enhanced quality of life for customers, etc. Systems can be the entire organization, or its departments, groups, processes, etc. (For an overview of various systems in organizations, see Basic Definition of Organization and Various Ways to Look at Organizations.) Whether the system is an organization, department, business, project, etc., the process of planning includes planners working backwards through the system. They start from the results (outcomes and outputs) they prefer and work backwards through the system to identify the processes needed to produce the results. Then they identify what inputs (or resources) are needed to carry out the processes.
7. Associate Responsibilities and Time Lines With Each Objective Responsibilities are assigned, including for implementation of the plan, and for achieving various goals and objectives. Ideally, deadlines are set for meeting each responsibility. 8. Write and Communicate a Plan Document The above information is organized and written in a document which is distributed around the system. 9. Acknowledge Completion and Celebrate Success This critical step is often ignored -- which can eventually undermine the success of many of your future planning efforts. The purpose of a plan is to address a current problem or pursue a development goal. It seems simplistic to assert that you should acknowledge if the problem was solved or the goal met. However, this step in the planning process is often ignored in lieu of moving on the next problem to solve or goal to pursue. Skipping this step can cultivate apathy and skepticism -- even cynicism -- in your organization. Don't skip this step.
other ways to conduct planning. For an overview of various methods, see (in the following, the models are applied to the strategic planning process, but generally are eligible for use elsewhere): Basic Overview of Various Planning Models