Chapter 6

What’s the Plan, Stan? Budgeting for a Better Bottom Line

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Seeing the master budget and its component parts

Bullet Appreciating the importance of budgeting

Bullet Planning production, sales, and cash

Bullet Working costs into the budget process

Bullet Assigning responsibility, using a budget as a guide

You need accurate information to make smart decisions about your business. A well-planned budget may be the most important piece of information you use.

Budgeting is a proactive process. It’s the thinking person’s accounting. You anticipate future outcomes and can maximize them. You anticipate problems and may be able to minimize or eliminate them. That’s a lot better than operating in ignorance and reacting to events as they come up.

In this chapter, you look at budgets, consider how to anticipate costs, and work through some essential budget documents.

Brushing Up on Budgeting Basics

As you know, a budget is a financial plan that includes both financial and non-financial information. ...

Get Cost Accounting For Dummies, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.