PART 2: MICROECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
CHAPTER 5: FLEXIBLE BUDGETING
Chapter Contents:
- Introduction
- Pro Forma Analysis at Guess Who Jeans
- Static Budget Variance at Guess Who Jeans
- Flexible Budget Variance at Guess Who Jeans
Introduction:
A budget is a plan for the future. Hence, budgets are planning tools, and they are usually prepared prior to the start of the period being budgeted. However, the comparison of the budget to actual results provides valuable information about performance. Therefore, budgets are both planning tools and performance evaluation tools.
Usually, the single most important input in the budget is some measure of anticipated output. For a factory, this measure of output is the number of units of each product produced. For a retailer, it might be the number of units of each product sold. For a hospital, it is the number of patient days (the number of patient admissions multiplied by the average length of stay).
The static budget is the budget that is based on this projected level of output, prior to the start of the period. In other words, the static budget is the “original” budget. The static budget variance is the difference between any line-item in this original budget and the corresponding line-item from the statement of actual results. Often, the line-item of most interest is the “bottom line”: total cost of production for the factory and other cost centers; net income for profit centers.
The flexible budget is a performance evaluation tool. It cannot be prepared before the end of the period. A flexible budget adjusts the static budget for the actual level of output. The flexible budget asks the question: “If I had known at the beginning of the period what my output volume (units produced or units sold) would be, what would my budget have looked like?” The motivation for the flexible budget is to compare apples to apples. If the factory actually produced 10,000 units, then management should compare actual factory costs for 10,000 units to what the factory should have spent to make 10,000 units, not to what the factory should have spent to make 9,000 units or 11,000 units or any other production level.
The flexible budget variance is the difference between any line-item in the flexible budget and the corresponding line-item from the statement of actual results.