Financial Management in Public Sector Undertakings

The main reason behind it is that the variance analysis of materials, labor, and overhead indicates the difference between original budget and actual sales/amount. It explains that the management should make changes in the budgets in order to diminish the chances of failure (Epstein & Jermakowicz, 2010). Moreover, the company should make changes in its all budgets like production budget, sales budget, manufacturing budget, selling budget and general & administrative. These changes would be helpful to reduce the difference between the actual and projected sales of the firm.

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

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

Open communication between all the staff to help the finance and management come up with correct budget for the company

Budget preparation is a process with designated groups and individuals having defined responsibilities. According to Irene S. Rubin “ The public budget process mediates between organizations and individuals who want different things and determines who gets what out of the budget.”1The Government set up an annual budget that includes people perspectives, opinions , accountability and than determine how the budget will get divided based on protected interests. Moreover, Public budgeting determines how government spend money, provide necessary resources , and limit government expenditures to prevent overspending.

Lastly, we have the program budget, which designate funds to groups that need to achieve specific goals. Program budgets do not allocate funds to company departments, but to company’s activities. Program budgets are very difficult because there are no specifics to go on, they usually have to go by an estimate, and try to cover all aspects of possibilities (Halliman, 2006).

Ineffective practices in creating and monitoring a budget include failure of management to integrate the operating budget with other planning efforts (Academic Writing Tips, 2011). Organizational leaders should ensure that the long term and intermediate goals correlate with the operating budget. Failure to align the operating budget with various assumptions such as size, scope, and nature of future operations can pose a problem (Academic Writing Tips, 2011). According to Finkler and Ward (2006), upper management and financial officers usually create the operating budget omitting frontline and unit managers. This process can lead to failure in the financial management practices

Introduction: In this report I will be speaking about how managing the resources of an organisation and effective budgetary control can lead to improved performance of a business.

After approval, expenditures for each department and fund are controlled, but can fluctuate with approval from the Budget Office. Each department creates their own budget resulting in little need for changes. The departmental expenditures are mostly organized by line-item budgeting, showing multiples years of spending, percentage changes, and listed expenditures by departmental division. The format of the budget increases transparency of the

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.

Budgets serve five main purposes; planning, facilitating communication and coordination, allocating resources, controlling profits and operations and evaluating performance and providing incentives. The budgeting process requires both technical and interpersonal leadership skills to achieve each of these purposes effectively. The director’s memo demonstrates several short comings in the budgeting process. The director instituted the “responsibility accounting system” as a means of evaluating performance. However, the DPW director has not consulted Sam in the budget process. Sam understands that his total expenditures are impacted by relatively unpredictable events that contribute to an uncontrollable element of his cost. The

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

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 though very essential to meeting organizational goals, are mostly hastily and improperly prepared. This eventually leads to unfulfilled budget and budgetary control practices.

Budgetary cycle in Malaysia, consist of four stages which are planning, budget preparation, budget implementation and budget evaluation. In first stage, government organisations are accountable in planning the budget target. Also, they require planning activities and programs for following year with efficiency. Second stage, budget is prepared and approved. Third stage, after Parliament has been approved the budget; a General Allocation Warrant to the Accountant General’s office will issue by the Finance Minister. It is as an authority for Accountant General’s office to expend the consolidated funds required for the expenditure. Government organisations are accountable to keep all accounting records in a vote book; so that, the allocation gets control and the expenditure occurred has been account. Fourth stage, the final of budgetary process cycle, Accountant General’s Department, Auditor General’s Department, Parliament and others will involve. According to the Federal Constitution Article 106 and 107, all public accounts have to be audited by the Auditor General’s Department and must be presented in Parliament. Thus, government organisations shall be update and present all information to the Auditor General with accurately and completely to ensure that there is no misuse of public fund. Auditor General will audit, examine and evaluate the financial performance of the government organisation’s