BUDGETING BASICS AND BEYOND

Here, at last, is a complete, easy-to-follow guide for nonfinancial managers who need practical, hands-on help preparing budgets and solving budgeting problems.
Budgeting Basics and Beyond: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide for Nonfinancial Managers makes it easy for managers with little or no budgeting experience to prepare and analyze budget information - and build the knowledge and skills needed to handle increasingly complex budgeting issues.
Step-by-step, the guide discusses what budgets are, how they work, how to prepare and present them, and how to monitor actual results against budget figures. It shows you how to employ financial modeling techniques in the budgeting process; get the most out of the most current software, including Lotus 1-2-3 and specialized plans such as Simplan; use budgeting as an effective tool to reduce departmental expenses through planning and control; project sales, costs, and cash flow with easy-to-use forecasting techniques; evaluate the difference between actual and budgeted revenue and costs to improve efficiency; identify problem budget areas and take corrective action; select the best long-term alternative investment proposal using capital budgeting techniques; and much more.
Best of all, Budgeting Basics and Beyond comes with a work-saving disk that features a number of Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet templates. It also outlines budgeting approaches by area of manager responsibility, including marketing, production, engineering, personnel, purchasing, and others, and includes illuminating "what if" analyses throughout.
Packed with case studies, illustrations, exhibits, checklists, examples, tables, and graphs, Budgeting Basics and Beyond is a truly valuable resource guaranteed to make the budgeting process effective and hassle-free for all nonfinancial managers who use it.

Jae K. Shim, Ph.D. is President of the National Business Review Foundation and Professor of Accounting and Finance, California State University.