A budget is a plan that outlines an organizations financial or operational goals. It is an action plan. It helps a business allocate resources, evaluate performance, and formulate plans. Understanding the importance of budgeting is the first step in successful financial planning. This tutorial introduces budgeting and the 5 most commonly used methods of budgeting
2. Preparing & Controlling a Budget
Budgeting is potentially a managers most valuable planning and management tool - but only if budgets are carefully planned and monitored. Depending on the size of the organization, preparing a budget can be a very complex process. This tutorial focuses on important aspects of budgeting - preparation and control.
3. Credit Management
Firms that plan to offer credit terms to customers need to address the issues such as assessing credit worthiness, trade terms, credit period, collecting payments etc., before the credit decision can be made. These issues will be discussed in this tutorial.
4. Financial Planning
Financial planning is vital for every firm because:
- it outlines the firms goals and provides benchmarks against which future performance can be measured
- it identifies the interaction between the firms investment and financing decisions
- it enables the firm to cope with changing business conditions
This tutorial outlines the financial planning process and shows how models can be used to forecast a firm's future financial performance.
5. Working Capital Management
Most decisions the financial manager will make are short-term in nature for example, organizing a 90-day bank loan to plug a financing gap. Though easier than long-term financial planning, short-term decisions are no less important. This tutorial focuses on the types of short-term assets and liabilities owned by a company and how the company can most efficiently use them. It also illustrates how short-term funding requirements can be met.
Once your business