BUDGETARY CONTROL

Budget is defined as ” a plan quantified in monetary terms prepared and approved prior to a defined period of time usually showing planed income to generated and /or expenditure to be incurred during that period and the capital to be employed to attain a given objective”

A budget may be expressed in relation to time i.e short-term and long-term budget.

A budget in relation to functions i.e production budget, sales budget, cash budget, capital budget etc.

A budget in relation to behaviour i.e fixed budget and flexible budget.

Budgetary control is the system of planning and accounting control through the use of budget.

Features of budgetary control

• Establishment of budgets
• Executive responsibility
• Requirement of policy
• Comparison of actual with budget
• Revision of policy

The objective of budgetary control may be listed below

• Planning  -To achieve its goal an enterprise must plan what it must do and how it will reach the goal
• Coordination  – proper coordination between the various department and persons of the organisation
• Control –  It is the process of keeping the watch over actions and taking immediate action when first sign of deviation.

Establishing budgetary control:-

Establishing budgetary control involve following:-

• Selecting budget period
• Identifying the types of budget to be prepared
• Consideration of the limiting factor.

Master Budget

A master budget is prepared from and summaries, the various function budgets. It is also called summary budget. It is a summary plan of the overall activities of the enterprises for a definite future period. It generally includes details relating to production, sales, stocks, debtors cash position fixed assets etc in addition to important control ratios.

Functional Budget:-

functional budget is a budget of income or expenditure appropriate to or the responsibility of function such as production sales, purchase etc. Each functional department prepares its own budget and all these functional budgets are then integrated into the master budget.

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