Budgeting - How to Prepare, Understand and Use Budgets

Overview

Management's needs for financial information are far from satisfied by the financial information provided in annual accounts.

Management needs to control its operations by:

• Selecting a course of action (planning)
• Seeing that the plan is carried out (supervision)
• Analysing the results (control)

This two day Short Course, intended to be an extension to the very successful Understanding Accounting Short Course, is designed to enable you to understand the language and basic concepts of budgets and budgetary control.

To gain maximum benefit, you should have some working knowledge of accounting.

Topics Covered

This Short Course is designed to assist in the preparation and understanding of budgets from supplementary budgets through to a budgeted Statement of Financial Position. The use of a budget as a managerial tool will then be discussed.

• The nature of costs
• The preparation of Supplementary Budgets
• The preparation of Master Budgets
• Decision making from Budgets
• Flexible Budgeting
• Case Studies

Who should attend

• Those who prepare budgets
• Those who use budgets

People from small and large organisations will benefit equally. Previous training in finance is not required, but a general familiarity with accounting reports is expected.

Outcomes

You will learn to:

• Prepare budgets
• Use budgets as a management tool
• Understand the use of variance analysis
• Predict profitability based on changes in sales and/or costs