| Submitted by;
Rhonda Moore

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a budget can be defined as “the amount of money that is available for, required for, or assigned to a particular purpose”. Many people think of budgeting as something to do when they're short on cash. College students might turn to a budget to figure out how to make due with their high expenses and limited incomes. Two purposes for budgets are planning and control. Planning is a way of constructing the budget to meet the pre determined goal and, it also controls the feedback system to ensure proper execution of the plan. The advantages of budgeting are communication of management plan in the organization, provides guidelines for managers to think and plan for future, allocate resources, uncover bottle necks, co-ordinate activities for entire organization and provide benchmark for evaluation of future performance. Typically budgets can be prepared annually, and they can represent a company’s plan in specific, quantitative terms. A budget can help companies plan for the future. So companies can also take advantage of a budget by shaping the well-organized line for making money and increasing assets. “A budget may span any period of time. It may be short-term (one year or less, which is usually the case), intermediate (two to three years), or long-term (three years or more). Short-term budgets provide greater detail and specifics. Intermediate budgets examine the projects the company currently is undertaking and start the programs necessary to achieve long-term objectives. Long-term plans are very broad and may be translated into short-term plans.” (Shim, Siegel, Shim)
Companies develop master budget derived from Sales budget, production budget, ending inventory budget, direct material budget, direct labor budget, manufacturing overhead budget, cash budget and Selling and