1.2.7 Additional Types of Budgets
- Income or Revenue Budgets
Income or Revenue Budgets consist of the expected quantity of sales multiplied by the expected unit selling price of each product. This gives the total expected income, or revenue, for that period.
- Expense Budgets
These budgets describe the direct material and direct labour costs involved in each production item, together with the estimated overhead costs.
- Profit & Loss Budgets
A profit and loss budget combines expense and revenue budgets in one statement. Managers who have the responsibility for both the expenses and revenues of their department (i.e. those who manage profit centres) often use these type of budgets.
Profit and loss budgets have three main uses:
To plan and co-ordinate overall company or departmental activities. For example, they make it possible to integrate the use of manufacturing facilities with sales forecasts.
- To provide benchmarks which are useful in judging the adequacy of expense budgets. For example, if the profit and loss budget indicates profit will be low, the expense budget might be revised downward.
- To help assign the responsibility managers have for their share of the overall organisation's performance. For example, the head of the manufacturing department will be accountable for the manufacturing expenses in the budget.
- Cash Budgets
Cash Budgets bring together the organisation's budgeted cash estimates for receipts, payments and new capital expenditures.
- Small Project Budgets
Small project budgets are used for the financial planning and control of one-off projects, or projects that are outside of core business and are handled separately to other production budgets.
- Capital Expenditure Budgets
Capital Expenditure Budgets indicate the future planned investments in new buildings, property, plant and equipment and other physical assets.
- Fixed & Flexible Budgets
Fixed budgets express what costs should be at one specified volume, whereas flexible budgets contain expense schedules and show how each expense should vary as the level of output increases.
Note:
Although the following kinds of budget are not discussed in detail, they are mentioned for the sake of completeness. People who have understood the budgeting principles discussed in this Unit of Study will, generally, find that the same ideas apply to these budgets.