A budget is a document that translates a group's or organization's strategic and operational plans into the expected resources required and returns anticipated over a certain period. *

Operating budgets

Capital budgets

Cash budgets

为什么预算问题 预算是一个团体或组织创建的财务蓝图或行动计划，以确保它有足够的资源来实现其目标。 预算还有助于确保实现这些目标产生预期的效益。 所以一个团体或组织使用预算来: 将其所有财务组成部分放入一个连贯的画面中，显示其战略和业务目标以及财务状况 使单个团队、部门和业务单位支持组织的目标(例如，公司将为负责扩大其区域内客户基础的销售和营销团队提供更多预算) 明智地分配资源 沟通财务预期 评估和激励经理和员工的表现(例如，当他们的团队达到预算中的目标时，经理和员工会得到奖金) 与外部涉众沟通目标。 许多公司向资本市场公开其战略和运营目标，然后将这些目标列入预算 例子 卡尔公司的投资者关系团队可能会告诉分析师，“我们预计每股收益为1.30 - 1.35美元”; “我们的资本支出不会超过收入的10%”; 或者“我们计划在未来三年增加5%的研发投入。” 当实际业务结果与预算目标结果不匹配时，采取纠正措施; 这可能意味着分配更多的资金来推动努力，或者在一项活动或倡议不再值得追求时削减资金。

The budget is the glue that holds together the different parts of the organization. You might have individual pockets of excellence in different parts of the organization, but they‘re not going to be coordinated with each other. So I liken this to each department being a pearl, but you really need the string to make a necklace—and the budget is the string that creates a necklace for you. So you want your sales and your production departments to be coordinated with each other? Well, they‘ll be coordinated only if they‘re working off the same budget. The second rule for the budget is resource allocation. You’re going to determine how much capital budgets I’m going to have, how much I’m going to spend on operating expenses, and those decisions involve tough priorities and tough choices to make. And if you did not have a budget, you would not make those tough choices and there would be a lot of inefficiency in the organization. The third reason why you should pay a lot of attention to an effective budget is that that‘s what sets you up for a very effective performance evaluation at the end of the period. If you have some targets, which is what budgets are, then you have something to compare actual performance against, and you know whether someone did a good job, whether they should be promoted, whether they need to be given a bonus, whether they need to be sacked. So lots of personnel decisions, whether you have the right person for the right job, get decided around a budget. So getting the budget right is very important for resource allocation decisions, for personnel decisions, and coordination of the whole organization.

Sub Topic

Top-down: Senior management sets budget goals such as revenue and profit targets, and imposes them on the rest of the organization.

Participatory: Those responsible for achieving the budget goals are included in setting them.

Static budget: The budget period is a specific time period—usually coinciding with the organization’s fiscal year.

Rolling budget: The budget is continuously updated so the time frame remains stable while the actual period covered by the budget changes. For instance, as each month passes, a one-year rolling budget is extended by one month, so there's always a one-year budget in place.

Incremental budgeting: Managers use the previous period's budget and actual results, as well as expectations for the future, to determine the budget for the next period.

Zero-based budgeting: The budgeting process begins from the ground up and ignores all previous budgets, as though the budget were being prepared for the first time.