Management of fiscal resources
Budget and Fiscal Management
Careers in public finance, including budget and fiscal management, cover the full range of
financial management of an organization. Budget analysts work with management to review
proposals to ensure that they are complete, fall within legal parameters, and are accurate. By
combining budget proposals from all departments within an organization, a budget analyst can
determine availability of funds, estimate future financial needs, and compare data from
previous years to determine whether the organization is being fiscally responsible. Such
comparisons can help the analyst and financial manager recommend budget cuts or funding
requests.
Financial managers perform similar tasks by supervising employees who create budgets
and prepare reports, statements, and forecasts related to the organization as well as the
industry. While budget analysts may focus primarily on debits and credits, financial managers
must have an understanding of the industry as a whole and be able to read trends, forecast
challenges, and navigate legislation pertaining to the industry.
Budget management pre planning consideration source and funds
Building a successful budget is a key component in accounting, and
nonprofit accounting is no exception. Whether you are just starting a
nonprofit or have been in existence for years, your organization requires a
budget. A good budgeting process engages those who are responsible for
adhering to the budget and implementing the organizations objectives in
creating the budget. Generally, the larger your organization, the more
complex the process may be, including the need to create multiple project
or department budgets. But even a one-person shop needs a budget that
details the basic income and expenses of the organization to appropriately
plan for donations, grants, and other sources of income.
Your annual budgeting process should be documented with tasks,
responsibility assignments, and clearly stated deadlines. A good budgeting
process also states that income is budgeted before expenses and
incorporates strategic planning initiatives.
Budgeting process by considering the following:
1. Involve Relevant Players : organization-wide cooperation is critical to
ensure a smoother budgeting process.
2. Budget for income first: create a realistic projection of reliable income
and make sure budgeted expenses are less.
3. Understand revenue source(s): budgeting is a form of risk management,
a healthy mix of diverse revenue streams will help keep the organization
stable should a revenue source go away.
4. Understand the budgets relationship to the organizations short and
long range goals: the budget should be consistent with the organizations
stated goals and missions.
5. Budget for capital in addition to operations: a capital budget can run for
several years, but a good strategy should be in place to ensure non-
operating goals are met.
6. Include notes when appropriate: dont take for granted that key
stakeholders fully understand underlying budget assumptions and be as
concise as possible.
7. Provide the appropriate tools: there are plenty of great budgeting
solutions out there, even if you plan on using Excel, make sure your
budgeters are trained.
8. Ensure the budget is presentable: you have worked hard on the budget,
make sure others can understand it.
9. Review and revise: the budget may need to change due to unforeseen
circumstances, think of it as a fluid document.
Budgeting Periods
The budget period is an important factor in developing a comprehensive
budgeting programme. This is the period for which forecasts can
reasonably be made and budgets can be formulated. A business enterprise
generally prepares a short-range budget, and a long-range budget.
Short-range budgets may cover periods of three, six or twelve months
depending upon the nature of the business. Most manufacturing firms use
one year as the planning period. Wholesale and retail firms usually employ
a six-month budget which is related to their selling seasons.
1. The budget period should be long enough to cover complete production
of various products.
2. For business of a seasonal nature, the budget period should cover at
least one entire seasonal cycle.
3. The budget period should be long enough to allow for the financing of
production well in advance of actual needs. It should provide adequate time to
arrange the funds for production and other purposes.
4. The budget period should coincide with the financial accounting period to
compare actual results with budget estimates and thus to facilitate better
interpretation of the performance.
A long-range budget or planning is defined as a systematic and formalised process
for purposefully directing and controlling future operations toward a desired
objective for periods extending beyond one year. Long-range budgets or plans are
neither described in precise terms, nor are they expected to be completely
coordinated future budgets. They cover specific areas, such as future sales, future
production, long-term capital expenditures, extensive research and development
programmes, financial requirements, profit forecast.
Program Status
Program status word (PSW) a collection of information that encapsulates
the basic execution state of a program at any instant. It permits an
interrupted process to resume operation after the interrupt has been
handled. The information is held in the program status register, and usually
contains the value of the program counter and bits indicating the status of
various conditions in the ALU such as overflow and carry, along with the
information on supervisor privileged status. The contents of other
processor registers may also need to be preserved in memory after an
interruption of a process and recovered when the interrupted process is
resumed so that the complete process state is reestablished.
ROBERT JAMES BARISO
BPE 3A
