Management Accounting - Budgeting (Level 4 AAT)

This unit is about the use of budgeting for planning, co-ordinating and authorising the activities of an organisation and for controlling costs. The unit provides skills and knowledge to improve the performance of an organisation by setting targets, constructing achievable plans and monitoring results.

Students will develop a range of skills within the context of planning and control. These include management accounting, statistical analysis, written communication and variance analysis.

The application of standard costing and its links to budgeting, is also included, although the topic is covered in detail in the Management Accounting – Decision and Control unit.

Students will also develop their business awareness. In particular, they will gain elementary understanding of production planning (efficiency, adjusting for changing inventory levels, material control, staff planning, plant scheduling) and aspects of marketing (competition, promotion, product life-cycle and so on). In this context, performance measures are used to set targets and monitor performance.

These are not high-level financial indicators, such as return on net assets as learned in other units, but detailed measures relevant to specific budgets. As an example, average hourly labour rate would be relevant to the control of a direct labour cost budget.