COMPARING BUDGETING TECHNIQUES(1)
The budgeting process is an essential component of management control systems, as it provides a system of planning, coordination and control for management. It is often an arduous process, however, and often strikes dread in the hearts of those involved in budget preparation.
In the public sector, the budgeting process can be even more difficult, since the objectives of the organisation are more difficult to define in a quantifiable way than the objectives of a private company. For example, a private company's objectives may be to maximise profit. The meeting of this objective can then be set out in the budget by aiming for a percentage increase in sales and perhaps the cutting of various costs. If, on the other hand, you are budgeting for a public sector organisation such as a hospital, then the objectives may be largely qualitative, such as ensuring that all outpatients are given an appointment within eight weeks of being referred to the hospital. This is difficult to define in a quantifiable way, and how it is actually achieved is even more difficult to define.
This leads onto the next reason why budgeting is particularly difficult in the public sector. Just as objectives are difficult to define quantifiably, so too are the organisation's outputs. In a private company the output can be measured in terms of sales revenue, for example. There is a direct relationship between the expenditure that needs to be input in order to achieve the desired level of output. In a hospital, on the other hand, it is difficult to define a quantifiable relationship between inputs and outputs. What is easier to compare is the relationship between how much cash is available for a particular area and how much cash is actually needed. Therefore, budgeting naturally focuses on inputs alone, rather than the relationship between inputs and outputs.
The purpose of this article is to critically evaluate the two main methods for preparing budgets - the incremental approach and the zero-based approach. Both of these have been used in both public sector and private sector organisations, with varying degrees of success.
INCREMENTAL BUDGETING
Incremental budgeting is the traditional budgeting method whereby the budget is prepared by taking the current period's budget or actual performance as a base, with incremental amounts then being added for the new budget period. These incremental amounts will include adjustments for things such as inflation, or planned increases in sales prices and costs. It is a common misapprehension of students that one of the biggest disadvantages of incremental budgeting is that it doesn't allow for inflation. Of course it does; by definition, an 'increment' is an increase of some kind. The current year's budget or actual performance is a starting point only.
Example A school will have a sizeable amount in its budget for staff salaries. Let's say that in one particular year, staff salaries were $1.5m. When the budget is being prepared for the next year, the headteacher thinks that he will need to employ two new members of staff to teach languages, who will be paid a salary of $30,000 each (before any pay rises) and also, that he will need to give all staff members a pay increase of 5%. Therefore, assuming that the two new staff will receive the increased pay levels, his budget for staff will be $1.638m [($1.5m +$30k + $30k) x 1.05]
It immediately becomes apparent when using this method in an example like this that, while being quick and easy, no detailed examination of the salaries already included in the existing $1.5m has been carried out. This $1.5m has been taken as a given starting point without questioning it. This brings us onto the reasons why incremental budgeting is not always seen as a good thing and why, in the 1960s, alternative methods of budgeting developed. Since I thoroughly believe that Paper F5 students should always go into the exam with their metaphorical F5 toolbox in their hand, pulling tools out of the box as and when they need them in order to answer questions, I am going to list the benefits and drawbacks of both budgeting methods in a easy-to-learn format that should take up less room in the 'box'. The problem I often find with Paper F5 students is that they think they can go into the exam without any need for such a toolbox, and while they may be able to get through some of the numerical questions simply from remembering techniques that they have learnt in the past, when it comes to written questions, they simply do not have the depth of knowledge required to answer them properly.
Benefits of incremental budgeting
· As indicated above, it is easy to prepare and is therefore quick. Since it is easy to prepare, it is also easily allocated to more junior members of staff.
· As well as being easy to prepare, it is easy to understand.
· Less preparation time leads to lower preparation costs.
· Prevents conflict between departmental managers since a consistent approach is adopted throughout the organisation.
· The impact of change can be seen quickly. For example, the increase of $138k in staff costs for the aforesaid school can quickly be traced back to the employment of two new staff members and a 5% pay increase because everything else in the staff salaries budget remained unchanged.
Drawbacks of incremental budgeting
· It assumes that all current activities and costs are still needed, without examining them in detail. In our school example above, we know that the headteacher has budgeted for two new language teachers. How carefully has he looked into whether both of these new teachers are actually needed? It may be that, with some timetable changes, the school could manage with only one new teacher, but there is no incentive for the headteacher to actually critically assess the current
· costs of $1.5m (provided, of course, that the funding is available for the two new teachers).
· With incremental budgeting, the headmaster does not have to justify the existing costs at all. If he can simply prove that there is an increase in the number of language lessons equivalent to two new staff's teaching hours, he can justify the cost of two new teachers.By its very nature, incremental budgeting looks backwards rather than forwards. While this is not such a problem is fairly stable businesses, it will cause problems in rapidly changing business environments.
· There is no incentive for departmental managers to try and reduce costs and in fact, they may end up spending money just for the sake of it, knowing that if they don't spend it this year; they won't be allocated the cash next year, since they will be deemed not to need it.
Performance targets are often unchallenging, since they are largely based on past performance with some kind of token increase. Therefore, managers are not encouraged to challenge themselves and inefficiencies from previous periods are carried forward into future periods. In our school example above, the headteacher may have hired an extra cook for the school kitchen when he thought that there was going to be greater demand for school dinners than there actually turned out to be. One of the cooks may be sitting idle in the kitchen most of the time but, with no-one looking at the existing costs, it is unlikely to change.
