Introduction Public financial management (PFM) of developing countries has recently being focused with the recognition of the various issues it holds. The reasons are 1. Cumulative deficit, payment delay, operational corruption, and other fiscal problems. 2. Increase of General budget support and the need of increasing accountability of receiving countries to reduce fiduciary risk. 3. Generalising of New Public Management. Due to the three reasons above, especially to deal with the fiduciary risk, various evaluation method had been created since 1997 (Ueno 2009). This essay focuses on Myanmar’s PFM where massive political and economic change occurred due to the election in 2010, and analyses its effectiveness and attainment along with the budget cycle using PEFA Public Financial Assessment Performance Report (PFA-PA) which is the first comprehensive PFM assessment in Myanmar. Then it argues the alternative measures to improve the cycle and involvement with the external factors. Cross-cutting features, Comprehensive Transparency PFM system in Myanmar has various problems in every phases of budgeting cycle, (planning, executing, accounting, and auditing). But before looking at each phases, several cross cutting features among this budget cycle would be observed first. In budgeting cycle, there are quite a few issues applicable for all the phases. One issue is that the budget categorization. In Myanmar, they have used their own categorization of budget which is not fully
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
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).
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
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
There is an increasing focus on improving the quality of public financial management around the globe, with many countries starting to make important and impressive achievements in strengthening public financial management and governance (Lovanxay, 2009). Nonetheless, much still remains to be done as we have discussed in this course. The public sector landscape is rapidly changing with an increasing emphasis on fiscal management and discipline, prioritization of expenditure and value for money. As a result from our dialogue on the subject, it is even more important that governments, national and local institutions, including regulators and professional accountancy bodies, work together in partnership to achieve long-lasting improvements, transparency and accountability in public financial
Budgeting is a process to plan budget which is used to describe fiscal expectation, expenditure and future planning of an individual, organization or government within a given period of time (Olawale, et al. 2012). Up until now, there are many methods of budgeting for governments such as traditional (line item) budgeting, zero-based budgeting, and performance based budgeting. Due to its simplicity, the traditional budgeting which listed groups of expenditure using last year’s data such as office supplies, salary, electricity bill and used incremental approach on them (Navin, 2003) has become the most popular one in many countries. However, many people criticize this budgeting method because many believe that this budgeting method is ineffective and inefficient . As a result, since 1990s, many countries have reformed their budgeting method to performance-based budgeting which use performance information in budget processes (Lee and Wang, 2009). Despite the trend of budgeting reform in the world, some developed
In todays ever changing business environment the traditional budgeting model is no longer able to effectively provide an organizations with the tools
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
Budget is time-consuming, especially if it involves a poorly managed company. The budget only pays attention to the quantitative aspect of business while neglecting the qualitative aspects. It does not consider the quality of services or goods and therefore inconsiderate of customers’ satisfaction. Another disadvantage of a budget is that it is inaccurate. A firm rarely “makes budget.” The hope is that the business activity will be close to the budget, but it could be off considerably and lead to bad hiring, spending and production decisions. This is because budget preparation is based on assumptions and thereby changes in the business environment could lead to unachievable
A budget is a tool that helps managers to ensure that the required resources are obtained and used effectively and efficiently as the organization moves towards achievement of its objectives. A budget is stated in terms of money and is usually made for one year depending either on the prior year’s budget or on existing programs (Cleverly & Cameron, 2007, p. 330). Creating a working budget is a very difficult undertaking, and for the budget to be functional, an organization must stick to the budget very closely. No matter how closely a budget is followed, there will be variances. Organizations can expect such variances and be able to work such situations into budgetary
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.
A “budget” is a “financial plan reflecting the business strategy and represents a more structured way of communicating it to the team”. The process by which a budget is built and agreed within an organisation is called “budgeting process” or “budgeting cycle”, that represents one of the most important financial planning tools. “This cycle always starts with a vision or a goal, based on which the approach to be used is chosen. The next step is the elaboration of the budget itself by allocating the right resources in the right place. It is very important to keep track of it (the sooner a variance is spotted, the better, as more time is available to understand it). The last stage is the evaluation process which should lead to future improvements”.
Budgeting is important process in organization. A budget process that works well could produce benefits as follow.