Budgeting Basics and Beyond

Budgeting Basics and Beyond shows you how the budget can be your most powerful tool for strategy and communications. It points out that the budget brings into stark relief all of the factors that every manager must consider, such as industry conditions, competition, degree of risk, stability of operations, capacity limitations, pricing policies, turnover rates in assets, production conditions, product line and service considerations, inventory balances and condition, trends in the marketplace, number of employees and their technical abilities, availability and cost of raw materials, available physical resources, technological considerations, economy, and political aspects. Then it uncovers the role each of those factors plays in achieving your corporate goals. And since those goals cannot be achieved single-handedly, this book suggests ways to use the budget to help each employee appreciate how they will contribute to the division’s profitability.

Aside from playing a vital role in creating and achieving a sound business strategy, this book shows how budgets can increase your effectiveness every day of the week. In particular, it delivers these on-the-job budgeting tools:

• Techniques for preparing more accurate, realistic, and reliable estimates
• Control and variance analysis devices that signal revenue, cost, and operations thresholds
• Pricing guidelines for products and services
• Planning and scheduling production and related costs
• Profit planning and identifying looming problems
• Financial models that show the relationship among all facets of the business
• Spreadsheet applications for planning, budgeting, and control purposes
• Implication of active financial planning software
• Sales and financial forecasting methodology
• Balanced Scorecard and performance metrics

Contents:

• The What and Why of Budgeting: An Introduction
• Strategic Planning and Budgeting: Process, Preparation and Control
• Administering the Budget: Reports, Analyses, and Evaluations
• Break-even and Contribution Margin Analysis: Profit, Cost, and Volume Changes
• Profit Planning: Targeting and Reaching Achievable Goals
• Master Budget: Genesis of Financial Forecasting and Profit Planning
• Cost Behavior: Emphasis on Flexible Budgets
• Evaluating Performance: The Use of Variance Analysis
• Manufacturing Costs: Sales Forecasts and Realistic Budgets
• Marketing: Budgeting for Sales, Advertising, and Distribution
• Research and Development: Budgets for a Long-term Plan
• General and Administrative Costs: Budgets for Maximum Productivity
• Capital Expenditures: Assets to Be Bought, Sold, and Discarded
• Forecasting and Planning: Reducing Risk in Decision Making
• Moving Averages and Smoothing Techniques: Quantitative Forecasting
• Regression Analysis: Popular Sales Forecast System
• Cash Budgeting and Forecasting Cash Flow: Two Pragmatic Methods
• Financial Modeling: Tools for Budgeting and Profit Planning
• Software Packages: Computer-based Models and Spreadsheet Software
• Capital Budgeting: Selecting the Optimum Long-term Investment
• Zero-base Budgeting: Priority Budgeting for Best Resource Allocation
• Managers’ Performance and Balanced Scorecard: Evaluation on the Division Level
• Budgeting for Service Organizations: Special Features
• Budgeting for Nonprofit Organizations: Diverse Types
• Using Management Games for Executive Training

Budgeting Basics and Beyond By Jae K. Shim, Joel G. Siegel pdf