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What is a budget?
In business, budget can be defined as a plan for an organization's outgoing expenses and incoming revenues for a
specific time period.
Capital budget
Operating budget
Budget hierarchy
Budget Cycle
Cash budget
Budgeting Process
Zero-base budgeting In large organizations, the Budget Office Director and staff
w ork w ith individual managers and others seeking funding
Budget variance analysis approval. As a result, budget proposals conform to local
policies and rules and the entire proposal package aligns w ith
organizational objectives.
Contents
Defining budget
What is zero base budging and how does it compare to incremental budgeting?
A company's operating budget, for instance, may forecast spending for "Employee Training." The annual spending
figure is set first, for high level planning. This is broken down later, however, into monthly or quarterly figures.
Suppose that two quarters into the budget cycle, the item "Employee Training" looks something like this:
Employee training is a single budget item for one company. The budget initially contains only
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the budget spending figures for each quarter. At the end of each quarter, how ever, actual
spending figures appear next to the budget figures. Variance then calculates as the
difference betw een these tw o figures.
Most budget analysts calculate a variance by subtracting the budget figure from the actual spending figure. They
normally report variance both in currency units and as a percentage of the budget figure. The percentage figure is
helpful, later, for variance analysis.
Note incidentally, this example uses a reporting convention common in finance, budgeting, and accounting. Here,
figures in parentheses are negative values.
Note also that analysts also have two different and opposite sign conventions for presenting variances. The example
above uses the first convention, where variance calculates as actual spending less the budget figure. Thus, a
positive variance means spending is over budget while a negative variance means spending is under budget.
Not everyone follows this convention, however. Under the second convention, variance calculates as the budget
figure less the actual figure. With this latter convention, therefore, an overspending variance is a negative figure.
In the real business world, small differences between actual and budget figures are normal and expected. Given a
large variance, however, management will want to know, immediately, exactly why actual results are so far off target.
The answer to the "Why" question may be obvious or it may require serious variance analysis. In any case,
management can respond with one or both of these actions:
Control actual spending in the future, so as to bring the annual variance closer to zero.
Most organizations plan spending and revenues in the framework of a budget hierarchy. Planning begins with high
level budgets, such as company-wide capital and operating budgets.
In the organization-wide operting budget, individual line items may carry the names of departments (e.g.,
"Marketing") or basic roles (e.g., "General management and administration").
In the organization-wide capital budget, individual items are organized into categories that may represent major
components of the company's asset structure (e.g., "Property, plant and Equipment").
In any case, this pair of high level budgets essentially covers spending for the entire organization.
Part of one company's budget hierarchy. Funding requests for the next budgeting cycle
normally start at the bottom. Requests pass from the bottom up through the organization
hierarchy, w here they aggregate at the highest level. Budget Office staff and senior
managers start making spending decisions for the highest levels, and then move
dow nw ard.
Operatingi budgets are normally
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10/13/2016 Budget, Budgeting Process, Variance Analysis Defined and Explained.
Operatingi budgets are normally
planned so as to represent a
hierarchy. In the budgeting process,
senior managers first set spending
levels for higher level categories such
as the "Marketing Budget" above.
Then, managers at lower levels in
Marketing further apportion the
marketing budget into lower level
budgets for areas such as market
research, advertising, and events.
Those who submit funding requests should keep in mind these points:
First, capital and operating budgets usually apply different criteria for prioritizing requests and deciding spending.
Second, most proposals include both CAPEX and OPEX spending. (Exceptions to this are proposals with cost
items only for employee labor ). The wise manager, therefore, builds the funding request and supporting business
case with an eye on both sets of criteria.
In brief, those who submit funding requests are asking the organization to spend. Proposal writers serve their own
interests, therefore, by researching and understanding fully how the organization plans and decides spending. For
more on anticipating spending decision criteria, see the article Business Case Analysis.
Whether or not an expenditure qualifies as a CAPEX or OPEX depends on the nature of the purchase and its usage.
And, the country's tax laws also play a role in determining what is a capital item and what is not .
For consistency in accounting and conformance with tax laws, organizations normally set specific criteria that qualify
acquisitions as "capital." One company might, for instance, require a useful life of one year or more and a purchase
price of 902.61€ or more. And, some companies also require capital acquisitions to support operations in the normal
line of business. In any case, only expenditures meeting capital criteria qualify as CAPEX. Those that do not are,
consequently, OPEX spending.
Capital budgets forecast spending for capital expenditures (CAPEX). This usually means the acquisition of capital
assets. Additions that qualify as capital items are almost always long lasting, expensive items, which contribute to
the value of balance sheet assets.
Capital budgets for large organizations are usually planned by a Budget Office. Or, they may be planned by a Capital
Review Committee working with the Budget Office. These groups establish their own criteria for prioritizing proposals
and for setting a limit for capital spending, the capital budget ceiling. Funds designated for the capital budget are
called, not surprisingly, capital funds.
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called, not surprisingly, capital funds.
Capital expenses (CAPEX) cover purchases that meet company and government criteria as capital assets.
Consequently, capital purchases may include items such as these:
Vehicles IT systems
Which capital proposals should the organization fund? When deciding such questions, management usually
considers at least three kinds of criteria:
1. Financial criteria.
These criteria address questions such as this: Will the investment return a profit? How does profitability for
this investment compare to other options? Or, How long will it take for the investment to pay for itself?
Return on investment
Payback period
In private industry, the ultimate reason for capital spending is to maximize value to company owners.
Companies normally undertake capital spending, therefore, only when investment returns exceed costs.
2. Risks.
When evaluating capital investment proposals, companies also consider risk s. Risk refers firstly to the level of
uncertainty in forecast returns. The term also refers, however, to risk factors that could lower returns, raise
costs, or disrupt investment schedule.
3. Strategic Alignment.
Companies also evaluate potential capital investments with respect to strategic consistency (strategic
alignment). They ask, in other words, how investment outcomes align with strategic objectives.
If the company has limited capital funds, moreover, the proposal may have to enter a competitive capital review
process. For this, a Capital Review Committee reviews and prioritizes all capital spending requests for the budget
cycle. The highest priority request receives funding approval first. The Committee then approves other request, in
order of priority, until they reach the capital spending ceiling. After that, the remaining lower priority requests do not
receive funding.
Competitive capital reviews, incidentally, usually have organization-wide scope. CAPEX proposals normally compete
for high-priority status against others from across the entire organization. By contrast, proposals for OPEX funding
normally compete only against others in the same budgetary unit (e.g., Marketing Advertising Budget).
In brief, those who propose or request capital funding should be sure they understand fully:
The timing of the current and next capital planning and spending cycles.
On the income statement, capital items are not fully expensed in one year.
Capital acquisitions impact the income statement and balance sheet by creating depreciation expense.
Depreciation itself is a non-cash expense . Nevertheless, these expenses are subtracted from revenues—
along with all other expenses—to calculate "bottom line" profits.
This non-cash expense does have one impact on real cash flow. For organizations that pay income taxes,
depreciation lowers reported income. This, in turn, lowers the company's tax liability. Depreciation expense,
in other words, brings tax savings.
Depreciation also impacts the value of the organization's asset base on the balance sheet. Each year of an
asset's depreciable life, its book value decreases by the depreciation expense.
Tax authorities determine which expenditures for business start up, for instance, qualify as capital costs.
Companies normally report costs of services as operating expenses, not capital expenses. In the United States
and a few other countries, however, services costs are sometimes "bundled" into the full capital costs of
acquiring assets. For example, a large capital project may result in a capital asset such as a large IT system.
Here, Services such as systems integration consulting, are viewed as legitimate capital costs.
Not surprisingly, the operating budget covers operating expenses (OPEX) for normal operations. The operating
budget therefore covers spending on items that do not part of balance sheet assets. These normally include
predictable recurring charges for such things as salaries and wages, or utilities costs. Operating expenses also
include, of course, spending items purchased irregularly, such as outside consultant services or employee training.
Operating budgets are typically developed through a process different from the CAPEX budgeting process. In some
companies, all managers above a certain level participate in the process. Budget figures for operating expenses,
once set, normally do not change during the period. (Execeptions include emergency reductions following
unexpectedly poor sales results or other disasters). In other words, spending plans for operating expenses usually
work as static budgets, not as flexible budgets.
OPEX spending impacts the income statement directly. It does not impact the balance sheet.
For the income statement, operating expense items are fully expensed in the year they occur. OPEX spending
"goes straight to the bottom line," impacting the earnings report only in the same reporting period.
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"goes straight to the bottom line," impacting the earnings report only in the same reporting period.
Operating expenses as a budgeting term vs. operating expenses as an income statement category
Note that there is also a major income statement category called "Operating Expenses." The term operating
expense thus has one meaning for budgeting and a slightly different meaning for income statement reporting.
Income statement Operating Expense items appear below the Gross Profit line and thus have no impact on
reported gross profits or gross margin.
When used in the budgetary sense, however, the term operating expense can include expense items above
the gross profit line. Wages for direct labor in product manufacturing, for instance, appear on the income
statement above the gross profit lines as part of Cost of Goods Sold.
Cash budgets typically have a series of months in view, although they can also show cash revenues and spending on
a weekly, quarterly, or annual basis. In all cases, however, the cash budget shows actual cash flows, only, in the
period they occur. This contrasts with the system of accrual accounting which most companies use for their financial
reporting. Accrual systems report receivables and liabilities for the period they occur, but cash flows that follow may
occur in another period.
A small company's monthly cash budget may look like this example:
One company's cash budget for tw o months. The cash budget represents actual cash inflow s and
outflow s in the period they occur. Revenues and expenses do not appear here until cash flow
associated w ith them occurs. The same company may use accrual accounting for financial reporting,
as w ell, but management w ill probably refer first to this cash budget w hen dealing w ith cash flow
issues.
The example cash flow budget show the budget as it stands in mid-February. Figures for January are now history and
will not change. "Actual" figures for February are current as of mid-month, but these may change by the end of the
month.
This example includes forecast inflows and outflows, actual inflows and outflows, and a variance for each item. The
variance is the actual figure less the forecast figure. With this convention, a positive variance shows that actual cash
flow exceeded the forecast, while a negative variance means the opposite, that is, actual spending was less than
planned.
Notice especially in the example the actual cash on hand balance at the end of January. Here, Cash income less
cash expenses = 118,795.92€. The final actual cash balance for January carries over to February as actual starting
cash for that month.
When large variances appear between forecast and actual inflows or outflows, the cash budget helps identify the
source of the variances. In the example above, for instance, the overall negative cash flow variance for January was
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source of the variances. In the example above, for instance, the overall negative cash flow variance for January was
not due to overspending in that month, but rather, the variance clearly results from product and service sales
revenues falling below forecast. For future months, the manager has two kinds of responses available:
In the period of time between issuance of one budget and the next, planning-related decisions and plans are referred
to as the budget cycle or process. In large companies, large educational institutions and non profit organizations,
and in government organizations, the process normally extends across months, if not the entire period between
budgets.
For those involved in the budgeting process there can be many specific steps and requirements to meet, and the
nature and timing of these vary widely among companies and organizations. Most large organizations in fact publish
a description of their own process, calendar, and approval requirements on their internal network. This information is
sometimes publicly accessible, or it may be accessible only to employees with authorized access to it. In any case,
anyone setting out to prepare a funding request for the first time will normally begin by accessing this source.
Although specific steps and timing vary from organization to organization, the budgeting process everywhere almost
always includes steps for:
Assessing variances between actual and budgeted figures in the previous period's plan.
Identifying and then prioritizing business needs and objectives for the forthcoming period.
Incoming revenues.
Current trends or changes that have spending or revenue implications. Special attention may focus on new
mandates to reduce spending, or changes in staffing levels, or changes in business volume.
Risks or emergencies that could impact incoming funds or spending needs. The budget, in other words, may
need to events such as labor action, competitor action, or natural disasters.
Ensuring that :
individual funding proposals in the complete plan are consistent in format. As a result competing proposals
can be compared fairly.
Procedures and methods are in place for implementing monitoring the plan.
Packaging and communicating funding requests to those responsible for reviewing and approving budget
proposals.
In large companies and organizations the process is managed and "driven" by, a Budget Office. This office works
with managers, department heads, and others who will seek funding approval, but also with the senior management,
legislative bodies, and senior officials who will make approval decisions. The result is that all budget proposals are
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legislative bodies, and senior officials who will make approval decisions. The result is that all budget proposals are
developed according to local policies and rules, and that the entire proposal package is reasonable and aligned with
organizational objectives.
Advocates of zero base planning favor the approach because it focuses on demonstrated needs and resources, not
on historical spending levels. This results, arguably, to more efficient resource allocation. The zero base approach
can be very effective, for instance, in detecting and eliminating inflated budgets, or those that include obsolete or
wasteful operations.
Zero based budgeting also helps avoid a practice common under the incremental approach, whereby managers
approaching the end of the budget period ensure that they spend all funds available to them, whether such spending
is necessary or not. Some managers believe that if they do not spend all of this period's plan, they will receive less in
the next period (in some organizations, this belief is supported by historical fact).
In a large organization, however, the zero based approach may call for very substantial research and analysis in order
to justify every funding request—an investment in time and organizational resources that is not, in its own right,
justified. Under the Incremental approach, formal justification (e.g., business case analysis) is normally required only
for capital spending proposals or for significant spending increases in operating expense categories.
Corrective action can be taken to reduce variances in the future, (an exercise in static budgeting) or
Figures for future spending can be adjusted as necessary (the practice of flexible budgeting).
Confusion sometimes arises in variance analysis because two different conventions for calculations commonly used.
Convention 1
This convention appears in this encyclopedia and in many organizations. Under this approach, a positive
variance always means the actual result was greater than the budgeted amount.
Convention 2
Some organizations (such as the Project Management Institute), however, recommend using the above
convention for revenue, but reversing the order for expense items:
Under this convention, positive variances are always "good things" (more revenue or less spending than
Obviously, anyone involved in planning and analyzing spending needs to know which convention applies in their own
organization.
In many companies, variance analysis becomes especially important in planning for two areas:
Revenues and costs in these areas are often difficult to predict accurately. Variance analysis for these areas is, in
fact, a complex and challenging topic for cost accountants. The simple example below is meant only to illustrate the
nature of the task.
Variance analysis typically begins with variance reports at the end of each month, quarter, or year, showing the
difference between actual spending and forecasted spending. As an example, consider a small manufacturing
company's quarterly variance report for one plan item, "Manufacturing overhead." The variance report shows that
Manufacturing overhead is 68,959.29€ over plan for the quarter. The variance is 7.4% of the budgeted figure:
Management w ill probably call for variance analysis w hen a large budget item turns out substantially
over budget. In this case, to understand w hy quarterly spending on hourly w ages is 9.6% over
budget, variance analysis w ill have to consider the interrelationships among all budget items in
"Manufacturing Overhead." The analysis w ill also have to determine w hether or not the unexpected
spending on w ages is compensated by increased income.
The Manufacturing overhead variance is a substantial percentage of a large budget item. Management will
certainly want to know the reason or reasons for the variance, and then what can be done to prevent recurrence in the
next quarters.
Variance analysis step 2: Identify components of cost items and their variances.
The next step in variance analysis is to identify the components of the cost item (manufacturing overhead), and
sources of variance within them.
The table above lists six line item components. Note that some of these are fixed costs, and others are variable
costs. Fixed costs are (in principle) should not depend on manufacturing volume and should be more predictable than
variable costs. Nevertheless, management salaries (a fixed cost) were 1,805.22€ over forecast. The analyst will
want to find the reason for the unexpected variance for management salaries.
It turns out that during the quarter, the four managers involved took a total of two weeks paid sick leave. This
required other manager labor to cover for them.
And, Insurance costs (another fixed cost item) were 5% over forecast. Why? Here, there was an unexpected
increase in insurance premiums during the quarter.
In the table above, two variable cost components of Manufacturing overhead cost stand out with strikingly large
variances. The large-variance components are Hourly wage costs (9.6% over plan) and utilities costs (24.2% over
plan). Of these, the hourly wage variance draws attention first because it represents a very large component of the
overall Manufacturing overhead variance.
Hourly wages are a variable cost item because they depend on manufacturing volume (units manufactured). Note,
however, that two other variable factors also contribute to total hourly wage costs. That is, labor hours per unit,
and cost of labor (here, dollars per hour) are themselves both variable costs.
Hourly wage costs are in fact the simple product 3 variable factors:
Hourly wage cost = (Units manufactured) * ( Labor hours per unit ) * (Labor cost per hour)
This table shows how actual figures for these factors compare with the forecast:
A budget item w ith an overspending variance is not necessarily a bad outcome. In this
case, the hourly w age variance results from unusually high w ork volume. This could mean
that the company produced and sold more products than expected.
To account for the actual labor cost, first add 100% to each variance figure.
These percentages, multiplied together, account for the actual labor cost:
The positive variance in units is not a bad result. On the contrary, the higher unit count is probably due to
increased sales revenues and profits.
Unit volumes are now forecast at higher figures for subsequent quarters. Management may now consider
additional hiring, so that the work can be done without extensive labor overtime.
The positive variance in average hourly wage rates should also move management to find ways to provide more
labor hours at the standard rate, instead of the much higher overhead rate. This is additional evidence that
management should consider additional hiring.
The efficiency gain in hours per unit is also a good result. Management will want to ask if this can be sustained
or even improved further. If so, the change may be reflected in future spending forecasts.
Management can use the "Actual hourly labor cost" formula above to try out different proposed figures and variances,
to see the impact on actual cost.
In addition, the very large variance for utilities costs (24.2% over plan) bears looking into in the same way, even
though the actual spending figures are small compared to the wage cost variance. The same kind of analysis here,
however, promises more complexity. Utilities costs represent a combination of phone costs, water costs, and
electricity costs, Each of these, in turn, involves the product of price variances, efficiency variances, and usage
variances.
Either adjust the budget in future periods, to conform with revenue or spending realities.
Or, take actions to impact future spending and revenues, so as to bring forecast and actual figures closer together.
The former option (adjusting the plan) is called flexible budgeting. The latter option is an instance of static
budgeting.
Most large organizations permit at least a limited level of flexible planning. Most managers responsible for lower level
budgets (e.g., for a department budget or for an operational area such as "Advertising") have the ability to adjust their
own plans "in real time" by moving planned levels from one category to another (except that movements from "capital
spending" authorizations to "operating expense" cannot be done so easily).
However, if a manager needs to increase his or her overall spending total above plan, that normally requires the use
of a process called "emergency funding" or request for non-budgeted funds that is presented to the next higher
management level. The next higher level may designate funds specifically set aside for such contingencies. Or, upon
demonstrated need, these funds may have to come from current assets, such as cash on hand or the sale of stock
owned for investment purposes.
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