Task 1: One of the major tasks of the management accountant is to produce a budget. Explain why this is done and the type of information it should contain.

A budget is a detailed plan for the acquisition and use of financial and other resources over a specified time period, which is prepared in advance by using past data (Seal, et al., 2015, p.462).

Before starting to produce budgets, the organisation ought to ensure its overall strategic goals. To achieve these goals, firstly, its management accountant should create various budgets to reflect its expected future results. Then the organisation will take actions based on the strategy and the accountant could obtain the actual outcomes. Compared the actual outcomes with the expected results …show more content…
As can be seen from the previous budgets, the expected visitor number has a great effect on these budgets. However, due to the impact of some factors, the prediction could not be always accurate. As for external influence, it is hard to forecast its customer flow when the market environment has changed. For instance, having intensive competition with nearby zoos may have an impact on predicting a number of its expected visitors. Besides, the opening times and admission prices are different as the season changes. It stays open longer and charge more fees in spring and summer while closing early and decreasing the admission price for the rest of time. Consequently, predicting outcome should take into account seasonality. Sometimes advertising and inflation also could influence it. In terms of internal factors, price variation is the most effective approach to influence its estimated customer numbers. Thus the zoo charges more fees at the peak of tourism, which probably increases the difficulty of forecasting. In the case of some special events or circumstances, the expected visitor numbers also will fluctuate. On Mother’s Day, Banham Zoo gives all mums free admission (Banham Zoo, 2017). For another example, POKÉMON GO LURE EVENT will be held in Banham Zoo to attract more Pokemon Go players, which will make the prediction far more challenging (Banham Zoo, …show more content…
Firstly, its overall trend could be obtained by dividing the total increase in average sales by the number of the time periods. Given the seasonality, its forecasted sales are equal to the trend plus the average seasonal variation when the seasonal variation will be exhibited in pounds or units. Or they are going to equal to the trend multiplied by the seasonal variation proportion. Hence, the organisation could know the estimated sales in accordance with the time and then calculate the forecasted visitor