ASSIGNMENT MATERIAL MyAccountingLab Questions 6-1 What are the four elements of
ID: 2508423 • Letter: A
Question
ASSIGNMENT MATERIAL MyAccountingLab Questions 6-1 What are the four elements of the budgeting cycle? 6-2 Define master budget 6-3 "Strategy, plans, and budgets are unrelated to one another." Do you agree? Explain. 6-4 "Budgeted performance is a better criterion than past performance for judging managers." Do you agree? Explain. 6-5 "Production managers and marketing managers are like oil and water. They just don't mix." How can a budget assist in reducing conflicts between these two areas? 6-6 "Budgets meet the cost-benefit test. They force managers to act differently." Do you agree? 6-7 Define rolling budget. Give an example. 6-8 Outline the steps in preparing an operating budget. 6-9 "The sales forecast is the cornerstone for budgeting." Why? 0 6-10 How can sensitivity analysis be used to increase the benefits of budgeting? 6-11 Define Kaizen budgeting. 6-12 Describe how nonoutput-based cost drivers can be incorporated into budgeting. 6-13 Explain how the choice of the type of responsibility center (cost, revenue, profit, or investment) affects behavion 6-14 What are some additional considerations that arise when budgeting in multinational companies? 6-15 "Cash budgets must be prepared before the operating income budget." Do you agree? Explain.Explanation / Answer
6-1: The four elements of the budgeting cycle are:
(a) Planning the performance of the company as a whole as well as planning the performance of its subunits. Management agrees on what is expected.
(b) Providing a frame of reference, a set of specific expectations against which actual results can be compared.
(c) Investigating variations from plans. If necessary, corrective action follows investigation.
(d) Planning again, in light of feedback and changed conditions.
6-2: The Master budget:
The master budget expresses management's operating and financial plans for a specified period (usually a fiscal year) and includes a set of budgeted financial statements. It is the initial plan of what the company intends to accomplish in the period.
6-3:
No, we do not agree with the given statement as Strategy, plans, and budgets are interrelated and affect one another.
Strategy specifies how an organization matches its own capabilities with the opportunities in the marketplace to accomplish its objectives.
Strategic analysis underlies both long-run and short-run planning. In turn, these plans lead to the formulation of budgets.
Budgets provide feedback to managers about the likely effects of their strategic plans. Managers use this feedback to revise their strategic plans.
6-4:
We agree that budgeted performance is a better criterion than past performance for judging managers, because inefficiencies included in past results can be detected and eliminated in budgeting. Also, future conditions may be expected to differ from the past, and these can also be factored into budgets.
6-5:
Production and marketing traditionally have operated as relatively independent business functions. Budgets can assist in reducing conflicts between these two functions in two ways. Consider a beverage company such as Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola:
(a) Communication. Marketing could share information about seasonal demand with production.
(b) Coordination. Production could ensure that output is sufficient to meet, for example, high seasonal demand in the summer.
6-6:
In many organizations, budgets impel managers to plan. Without budgets, managers drift from crisis to crisis. Research also shows that budgets can motivate managers to meet targets and improve their performance. Thus, many top managers believe that budgets meet the cost-benefit test.
6-7:
A rolling budget, also called a continuous budget, is a budget or plan that is always available for a specified future period, by continually adding a period (month, quarter, or year) to the period that just ended. A four-quarter rolling budget for 2011 is superseded by a four-quarter rolling budget for April 2011 to March 2012, and so on.
6-8:
The steps in preparing an operating budget are as follows:
1. Prepare the revenues budget
2. Prepare the production budget (in units)
3. Prepare the direct material usage budget and direct material purchases budget
4. Prepare the direct manufacturing labor budget
5. Prepare the manufacturing overhead budget
6. Prepare the ending inventories budget
7. Prepare the cost of goods sold budget
8. Prepare the nonmanufacturing costs budget
9. Prepare the budgeted income statement
6-9:
The sales forecast is typically the cornerstone for budgeting, because production (and, hence, costs) and inventory levels generally depend on the forecasted level of sales.
6-10:
Sensitivity analysis adds an extra dimension to budgeting. It enables managers to examine how budgeted amounts change with changes in the underlying assumptions. This assists managers in monitoring those assumptions that are most critical to a company in attaining its budget and allows them to make timely adjustments to plans when appropriate.
6-11:
Kaizen budgeting explicitly incorporates continuous improvement anticipated during the budget period into the budget numbers.
6-12:
Nonoutput-based cost drivers can be incorporated into budgeting by the use of activitybased budgeting (ABB). ABB focuses on the budgeted cost of activities necessary to produce and sell products and services. Nonoutput-based cost drivers, such as the number of parts, number of batches, and number of new products can be used with ABB.
6-13:
The choice of the type of responsibility center determines what the manager is accountable for and thereby affects the manager’s behavior. For example, if a revenue center is chosen, the manager will focus on revenues, not on costs or investments. The choice of a responsibility center type guides the variables to be included in the budgeting exercise.
6-14:
Budgeting in multinational companies may involve budgeting in several different foreign currencies. Further, management accountants must translate operating performance into a single currency for reporting to shareholders, by budgeting for exchange rates. Managers and accountants must understand the factors that impact exchange rates, and where possible, plan financial strategies to limit the downside of unexpected unfavorable moves in currency valuations. In developing budgets for operations in different countries, they must also have good understanding of political, legal and economic issues in those countries.
6-15:
No. Cash budgets and operating income budgets must be prepared simultaneously. In preparing their operating income budgets, companies want to avoid unnecessary idle cash and unexpected cash deficiencies. The cash budget, unlike the operating income budget, highlights periods of idle cash and periods of cash shortage, and it allows the accountant to plan cost effective ways of either using excess cash or raising cash from outside to achieve the company’s operating income goals.