Budgeting consumes a massive amount of time and resources. It's a stressful and busy time.
Are there ways to improve the effectiveness of the investment we make in the budget process? Can we make better budgeting decisions that lead to higher performance?
There are options within and beyond traditional budgeting. Each company should consider these options and decide which could improve their budgeting process. Budgeting has many benefits that we can continue to capture and build upon.
This course will focus on the Master Budget and the budgets that comprise it. There's a method to the madness when different types of assumptions and calculations are layered into the budget. However, the process is not entirely sequential. It abounds with iterative loops.
Publication Date: February 2024
Topics Covered
- The master budget and sub-budgets
- The budgeting process
Learning Objectives
- Recall the role of the master budget and sub-budgets
- Recall key steps in the budgeting process
- Identify cash implications of a budget
- Identify the formula for Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) analysis
- Identify how step costs vary with volume
- Identify a useful tool for calculating break-even analysis in Excel
- Identify the budgeting type being used when revenue is set at the company level and then allocated to groups/departments/centers
- Identify the two methods for calculating direct production labor
- Identify the most relevant point for measuring capacity in a production process
- Identify the term for the loss of sales at one price to sales of the same product at a lower price
Level
Basic
Instructional Method
Self-Study
NASBA Field of Study
Finance (3 hours)
Program Prerequisites
None
Advance Preparation
None
Instructor
Rob Stephens
Rob Stephens is the Founder of CFO Perspective, which provides continuing education courses for CPAs and financial management courses for business advisors and staff. He has been quoted in Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many other news sources.
Rob has a 30-year career that includes serving as CFO, Director of Operations, and SVP of Finance. Rob is an adjunct instructor for the MBA program at Gonzaga University.
Rob holds a Masters of Science in Personal Financial Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Therapy from Kansas State University. He received a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington and is a CPA.