"A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month."
Budgeting tools and techniques are methods used in public administration to support the preparation, analysis, and management of a budget. It includes various techniques such as cost-benefit analysis, program budgeting, performance-based budgeting, and zero-based budgeting.
Definition of budgeting: Understanding what budgeting is and its importance in public administration.
Types of budgets: Familiarising yourself with the different types of budgets such as operating budget, capital budget, cash budget, program budget, performance budget, etc.
Budgeting process: Understanding the process of creating a budget and its stages, including preparation, approval, execution and evaluation.
Budgeting methods: Learning about different budgeting methods, including incremental budgeting, zero-based budgeting, activity-based budgeting, etc.
Budgeting tools and software: Exploring different budgeting tools and software such as spreadsheets, accounting software, etc.
Budgeting policies: Understanding the policies that guide budgeting practices in public administration.
Budget management: Learning about strategies for managing budgets, such as contingency planning and risk management.
Budget reporting and monitoring: Understanding how to create budget reports and monitor budget performance regularly.
Fund accounting: Understanding fund accounting and how it relates to budgeting in public administration.
Ethical considerations: Learning about ethical considerations in budgeting, such as fairness, transparency, and accountability.
Cost-benefit analysis: Understanding how cost-benefit analysis is integrated into budgeting in public administration.
Cross-functional teams: Learning about the importance of cross-functional teams in budgeting, which can include financial analysts, program managers, and others.
Performance measurement: Understanding how performance measurement is used to evaluate budget performance.
Budgetary control: Understanding budgetary control and how it is used to regulate budget implementation and track budget performance.
Public finance and budgetary policies: Understanding the relationship between public finance and budgetary policies in public administration.
Traditional budgeting: This type of budgeting involves creating a budget from scratch every year based on previous year’s figures. It mainly focuses on income and expenditure to prepare a budget.
Incremental budgeting: This type of budgeting is similar to traditional budgeting, but it involves making incremental changes to the previous year's budget, rather than creating a budget from scratch every year.
Zero-based budgeting: It involves preparing a budget from scratch, starting from zero base, and considering every single expense to justify its value. The budget is set considering the outcome to achieve for every expense, along with its value to the organization.
Activity-based budgeting: This type of budgeting is based on analyzing and calculating the cost of each activity and its outcome. It helps organizations to focus on the tasks at hand and allocate resources more efficiently.
Program budgeting: Program budgeting allocates funding based on program goals or objectives. It is often used to prioritize and evaluate the performance of the programs.
Flexible budgeting: Flexible budgeting is an approach in which the budget is adjusted based on the actual result achieved. The approach considers the actual growth and decline in the organization.
Performance budgeting: This approach emphasizes mainly on results-based budgeting, providing performance information with budget information, and encourage programs to use their resources effectively.
Participatory budgeting: In this approach, budget decisions are handed over to citizens who can participate in meetings and other decision-making platforms to discuss and decide on budgets that would better serve their needs.
Outcome budgeting: Focuses on the outcome of the budget rather than spending. It helps to identify areas to focus and to reinforce those areas that are achieving the desired outcomes.
Cash flow budgeting: This type of budgeting mainly focuses on cash flow management. The budget keeps an overview of how much cash is flowing in and out of the organization, ensuring that there is always enough cash to meet the required expenses.
"A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, other impacts, assets, liabilities and cash flows."
"Companies, governments, families, and other organizations use budgets to express strategic plans of activities in measurable terms."
"A budget expresses intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them with resources."
"A budget may express a surplus, providing resources for use at a future time."
"A budget may express a deficit in which expenditures exceed income or other resources."
"A budget is usually but not always financial."
"A defined period, often one year or a month."
"Resource quantities including time, costs and expenses."
"Environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, other impacts."
"Assets, liabilities, and cash flows."
"They use budgets to express strategic plans of activities in measurable terms."
"No, budgets can also include non-financial elements such as environmental impacts."
"A budget provides proposals for how to meet expenditures with resources."
"A surplus provides resources for use at a future time."
"In a deficit, expenditures exceed income or other resources."
"Companies, governments, families, and other organizations."
"Yes, budgets can be created for a defined period, often one year or a month."
"Costs and expenses."
"Not always, a budget is usually but not always financial in nature." Note: The provided quotes were selected from the paragraph, but slight modifications were made to ensure clarity and coherence in answering each question.