Financial Planning Flashcards
What is a Master Budget?
Budget targeted for the company as a whole
Includes budgets for Operations and Cash Flows
Includes set of budgeted Financial Statements
A Master budget is on one level of activity only
How do Fixed Costs affect budgeting?
Costs independent of the level activity within the relevant range
Property Tax is the same whether you produce 100-000 units or zero units
However – Fixed Costs per unit vary given the amount of activity
If you produce fewer units- fixed costs per unit will be greater than if you produce more units – i.e. less units to spread the cost over
How do Variable Costs affect budgeting?
The more Direct Materials or Direct Labor used- the more Variable Costs per unit
However – Variable Costs per unit don’t change with the level of activity like Fixed Costs per unit
How are Material Variances calculated?
SAM:
Standard Material Costs
- Actual Material Costs
= Material Variance
How are Labor Variances calculated?
SAL
Standard Labor Costs
- Actual Labor Costs
= Labor Variance
How are Overhead Variances calculated?
OAT
Overhead Applied
- Actual Overhead Cost
= Total Overhead Variance
How does Absorption Costing compare to Variable Costing?
Absorption Costing - External Use- Cost of Sales- Gross Profit- SG&A
Variable Costing - Internal Use- Variable Costs- Contribution Margin- Fixed Costs
How is Contribution Margin calculated?
Sales Price (per unit)
- Variable Cost (per unit)
= Contribution Margin (per unit)
How is Break-even Point (per unit) calculated?
Total Fixed Costs / Contribution Margin (per unit)
= Break-even Point Per Unit
Assumption: Total Costs & Total Revenues are LINEAR
What is the focus in a Cost Center?
Management is concerned only with costs
What is the focus in a Profit Center?
Management is concerned with both costs and profits
What is the focus in an Investment Center?
Management is concerned with costs- profits- and assets
What is the Delphi technique?
Forecasting technique where Data is collected and analyzed
Requires judgement/consensus
What is Regression Analysis?
A forecasting technique where Sales is the dependent variable.
Simple Regression - One independent variable
Multiple Regression - Multiple independent variables
What are Econometric Models?
Forecast sales using Economic Data
What are Naive Forecasting Models?
Very Simplistic
“Eyeball” past trends and make an estimate
How does a Moving Average compare to Exponential Smoothing?
Both project estimates using average trends from recent periods
Difference: Exponential Smoothing weighs recent data more heavily
What are the characteristics of Short-term Cost Analysis?
Uses Relevant Costs Only
Ignore Sunk Costs
Opportunity Cost is a Must
What is Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis?
Cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis provides management with profitability estimates at all levels of production in the relevant range (the normal operating range between our high and low point)
CVP (or breakeven) analysis is based on the firm’s profit function
Profit (NI) = Sales (S) - FC - VC
- when profit = 0
What are the assumptions of CVP analysis?
When applying CVP to a specific case and in interpreting the results therefrom, it is important to keep in mind the assumptions underlying CVP:
- Selling price does not change with the activity level
- The sales mix remains constant
- Costs can be separated into fixed and variable elements
- Variable costs per unit are constant
- Total fixed costs are constant over the relevant range
- Productivity and efficiency are constant
- Units produced = Units sold (this means that there is no change in ending inventory)
What is Variable (Direct) costing?
Variable or Direct costing is a form of inventory costing.
Variable costing considers fixed manufacturing costs as period rather than product cost. It is advocated because, for internal reporting, it presents a clear picture of performance when there is a significant change in inventory
Variable costing is NOT GAAP
What is Financial planning?
Financial planning is the process of:
- Analyzing the investment and financing alternatives available to a firm
- Forecasting the future consequences of the alternatives
- Deciding which alternatives to undertake
- Measuring subsequent performance against established goals. You always have to seek feedback and determine how well you did in with your plan
Financial planning must be tied to the strategic plans to top management
What is the Top-down mandated budget approach?
Top-down mandated approach involves upper-level management establishing the budget parameters and it is passed down through the organization to each reporting unit
Advantages:
- Quick preparation time
- Clear communication of managements’ objectives
Disadvantages:
Lower-level management & employees may view it to be dictatorial and not fully embrace and accept the budget
What is the Participative (bottom-up) budget approach?
The Participative (bottom-up) budget approach is driven by involving lower-level management and employees
Advantages:
- Employees may more readily accept the budget
- Morale may be improved
- Budget input is provided by a larger number of individuals, which means that the budget may be more accurate
Disadvantages:
- Process is time-consuming
- Managers may try to pad their budgets - meaning that they make it very easy for them to achieve their budget
What are the components of the Master budget?
A Master budget is on one level of activity
only
The master budget summarizes the results of the following budgets:
- Operating budget - budgeted income statement & supporting schedule. Note that whatever isn’t in the financial budget is included in the operating budget
- Financial budget - consist of the following budgets:
a. Capital or capital expenditures budget
b. Cash budget
c. Budgeted balance sheet
d. Budgeted statement of cash flows
What does the budget process consist of?
The budget process begins with an estimate of sales then proceeds systematically as follows:
- Develop of sales forecast - everything depends on how much you can sell
- Develop a production schedule to calculate production costs and COGS - figure out how much your going to produce. Once you figure out how much your going to sell; then you determine how much your going to produce
- Estimate other expenses & revenues - Once you figure out how much your going to produce; then you can estimate your expense for materials, labor, VMOH + Fixed overhead, investment in PP&E (capital expense budget), and all period cost budgets such as R&D and SG&A
- All of the items above flow through to the Cash budget
- Cash budget items flow through to the budgeted income statement
- Budgeted income statement items flow through to the budgeted balance sheet
- Budgeted balance sheet items flow through to the budget statement of cash flows
What is the Capital (capital expenditures) budget?
The capital or capital expenditures budget displays the financial effects of purchases and retirements of long-lived assets
This information is needed to budget the cash and financing needs of the firm
What is Activity-based budgeting (ABB)?
Activity-based budgeting (ABB) complements activity-based costing (ABC) by focusing on the costs of activities necessary for production and sales
An activity-based budget is developed by multiplying the budgeted level of the cost driver for each activity by the budgeted cost rate and summing the costs by functional or spending categories
ABB estimates the costs of performing various activities, in contrast to traditional budgeting which directly budgets costs for functional or spending categories (i.e. R&D, G&A)
What is Kaizen budgeting?
Kaizen budgeting projects costs on the basis of improvements yet to be implemented rather than upon current conditions
The budget will not be achieved unless the improvements are actually made
What is Decomposition of time series?
Decomposition of time series is one approach to forecast sales based on historical data
This technique is especially appropriate when sales are seasonal or cyclical in nature. The technique examines prior sales data and estimates seasonal and cyclical effects
When these effects are extracted from the prior data, historical trends may be observed and projected into the future
What is the Markov technique?
The Markov technique is on approach to forecast sales based on forecasts of consumer behavior
This technique attempts to forecast consumer purchasing by considering factors such as brand loyalty and brand switching behavior
These data are used to predict changes in the firm’s market share, which is then used to develop the sales forecast
What is a Flexible budget?
A flexible budget is a budget adjusted for changes in volume, meaning you can “flex up” or “flex down”
This type of budget is for multiple activities, but they all have to stay within the relevant range. Compare this with the Master budget, which is only on one level of activity
In the planning phase, a flexible budget is used to compare the effects of various activity levels on costs and revenues
In the controlling phase, the flexible budget is used to help analyze actual results by comparing actual results with a flexible budget for the level of activity achieved in the period
Standard costing naturally complements flexible budgeting
What is Responsibility accounting?
Responsibility accounting allocates those revenue and/or assets which a manager can control to that manager’s responsibility center and holds the manager accountable for the operating results
The level or types of responsibility that a manager can have are:
- Cost center (i.e. payroll department & accounting - have costs only)
- Profit center (have costs & profits)
- Investment center (i.e. PP&E, investments and intangible assets)