The Importance Of The Zero-Base Budget

Community colleges have roots dating back to the 1900’s and became more homogenous with the help of the 1960’s California Master Plan for Higher Education. In the past, community colleges were tuition-free or subsidized by local property taxes and state appropriations (Cohen, M. & Brawer, F. 2008). Currently, community college financing has been unpredictable “due to the discretionary nature of state support and the vagaries of funding initiatives” (Phelan, 2014, pg. 7). Nevertheless, colleges continue to be dependent on state appropriations and local property taxes as the primary source of revenue. Due to the instability associated with appropriations, community colleges must develop dynamic budgets that have the capacity to overcome fluctuations in revenue and enable the college to offer affordable access to higher education to its constituents.

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).

In outlining a budget there are two phases that must be determined to create a budget, an operating phase and a financial phase. “Developing a new operating budget starts with examining budgets from previous years and identifying what components are going to change, by how much and if any new components need to be added or existing ones reduced or cut” (Budget Challenges, 2012). In the first phase of the budget it needs to be determined how much money is going to be needed to operate the day to day activities of the business.

\Governments undertake budgeting as one of the crucial activities with a budget comprising of a plan regarding financial operations that comprise of estimated revenues for financing estimated expenditures within a given period (Florida Finance Officers Association, 2011). Effective budget processes require involvement of all stakeholders so as to enhance in arriving at a budget that is well planned as well as communicated to the respective stakeholders.

Budget is a planned outcome of the future - defined by your plan that your business wants to achieve.

A budget is a plan which predicts how much a company makes in revenues and how much it is going to pay in expenses and so predicts a profit or loss. A budget is can be prepared whenever a company wants two and for however long a period of time it wants to prepare it for. Companies and people would budget in order to avoid overspending and even if this does happen as it will predict how much money will be needed then the person/ business can arrange for it by getting an overdraft facility or

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.

Budgeting is the systematic method of allocating financial, physical, and human resources to achieve an organization’s strategic goals. Budgets are utilized by for-profit and non-profit organizations to monitor the progress towards the goals, assist in the control of spending, and help predict cash flow for the organization.

What is a budget? A budget forecasts the financial results and financial position of a company for one or more future periods. A budget is used for planning and performance measurement purposes, which can involve spending for fixed assets, rolling out new products, training employees, setting up bonus plans, controlling operations, and so forth (Bragg, 2017).

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

Budgeting is crucial in the well-being of a company especially the financial health status of a company. In fact, no professionally managed firm would fail to budget, since the budget establishes what is authorized, how to plan for purchasing contracts and hiring, and indicates how much financing is needed to support planned activity. It is routine for a company to budget for its expenses. Expense budgets act as a guideline of how much revenue a company would require keeping the activities running. It is used to set the company’s targets for a certain period.

“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it” (George W. Busch 2005). This definition of a budget can be supplemented using the Oxford dictionary, which states that a budget is an estimate of income and expenditures for a set period of time. Nowadays almost every business uses budgets and managers use them as a tool in order to set targets. In other words managers can, with the use of budgets, explain in a financial way what are the

Budget is a comprehensive business plan for procuring and appropriating a firm’s financial resources over a specified time period.

Budget and budgetary control practices are undeniably indispensable as organizations routinely go about their business activities and operations. These organizations are constantly on the alert on how actual levels of performance agree with planned or budgeted performance. A budget expresses a plan in monetary terms. It is prepared and approved prior to a particular budgeted period and explicitly may show the income, expenditure and the capital to be employed by organizations in achieving their goals and objectives.