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Budgeting and Controlling Cost

In: Business and Management

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Words 1935
Pages 8
Budgeting, and Controlling Costs

Kittrin Smith

Ashford University

Managerial Accounting – BUS 630

Dana Leland

September 3, 2012

Budgeting and Controlling Cost Budgeting is an essential tool for the successful management of any company. It’s a way for upper management to communicate its plans and intentions to the entire company. The budget is their plan for success. According to Noreen, Brewer, and Garrison (2011) it is a quantitative plan for acquiring and using resources over a specified time period. The budget process can seem like a tedious exercise for some, as it involves and affects all areas of the company, but in the end it enables a company to plan how it will achieve revenue goals and control costs. In the simplest of terms the budget explains how much the company should be spending to produce a predetermined about amount of product which will yield a desired profit. Through the budgeting process and the controlling of costs many company’s like American Airlines, are able to keep their costs at a minimum and profits as high as possible. A company’s master budget is actually made up of a collection of smaller budgets that detail the company’s sales, production and financial goals. These smaller budgets consist of a sales budget, a production budget or an inventory of merchandise purchases budget, a direct materials budget, a direct labor budget, a manufacturing overhead budget, an ending finished goods inventory budget, a selling and administrative expense budget, and a cash budget. The information obtained from these budgets come together to make up the budgeted income statement and the budgeted balance sheet. The sales budget shows the expected sales for the period. Noreen et all (2011) tells us that an accurate sales budget is the key to the entire budgeting process. The task of determining

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