Definition of Budget Essay Example for Free

Definition of Budget Essay It is an estimation of the revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time. It can help to create a system when someone wants to open a shop or start investments. A budget can be made for a person, family, group of people, business, government or anything else that makes and speaks money. It can also help to establish a planned level of expenditures and it can help to maintain a budget for a company either on an accrual or a cash basis. Structured planning can make all the difference to the growth of the business, it will enable businesses to concentrate resources on improving profits, reducing cost and increasing returns on investment. Relationship Between Budgeting Management of Business When a budget is done properly, it can serve as a planning and controlling system. The company’s data, goal, performance objectives are documented in financial terms. It can help to see whether the company is profiting or not profiting. These budgeting are used throughout the year, monthly performance reports compare budgeted results with actual results. The role that effective budgeting plays in the management of business, is best understood when it is related to the fundamentals of management. Planning is essential in the management of a business. Management has certain variables that it can control. Goals are the annual planning process for every company. These goals can be termed as profit, return on investment, product leadership, market share, product diversification, or simply survival. It helps an organization set a level for clients. Advantages Of Budgeting The major strength of budgeting is that it coordinates activities across departments. It can help to calculate the amount of money needed for the month or year. Budget translates strategic plans into action. They specify the resources, revenues and activities required to carry out the strategic plan for the coming year. Budget provides and excellent record of organizational activities. It also helps to improve communication between employees. It can help with profitability review as a properly structured budget points out which aspects of a business generate cash and which ones to use. Cash allocations can be used when there is a limit to the amount of cash available to invest in fixed assets and working capital, and the budgeting process forces management to decide which assets are most worth investing in. Also, large investors may want a benchmark against which they can measure the company’s progress. Even if a company chooses not to lend much credence to its own budget, it may still be valuable to construct a conservative budget to share with investors. The same argument holds true for lenders, who may want to see a budget versus actual results comparison from time to time. Disadvantages Of Budgeting There may be inaccuracy during budgeting as it is based on assumptions based on a set of assumptions that are generally not too far distant from the operating conditions under which it was formulated. If the business environment changes to any significant degree, then the company’s revenues or cost structure may change so radically that actual results will rapidly depart from the expectations delineated in the budget. It can also be very time-consuming to create a budget, especially in a poorly-organized environment where many iterations of the budget may be required. The time involved is lower if there is a well-designed budgeting procedure in place, employees are accustomed to the process, and most of the company uses budgeting software now. The budget may prescribe that certain amounts of overhead costs be allocated to various departments, and the managers of those departments may take issue with the allocation methods used. This is a particular problem when departments are not allowed to substitute services provided from within the company for lower-cost services that are available else where. Limitations Of Budgeting Large investors may want a benchmark against which they can measure the company’s progress. Even if a company chooses not to lend much credence to its own budget, it may still be valuable to construct a conservative budget to share with investors. The same argument holds true for lenders, who may want to see a budget versus actual results comparison from time to time. Budgeting is a time consuming and costly job. The development of a budget includes many repetitive steps before the budget is finally approved. This process requires lots of negotiations between managers at different levels until a budget evolves which is acceptable to all levels (langfield smith , thorne hilton 2006). Budgets can also cause a great deal of waste and behaviourable problems. Hope and Fraser (1999) cite Jack Welch, from General Electric as claiming that making a budget is and exercise in minimalisation â€Å"you are always getting the lowest out of people, because everyone is negotiating to get t he lowest number.† People’s main goal is to meet the budgets, so they always try to negotiate to get lower targets with lower sales and higher costs, which are well-known as padding the budgets. Conclusion I disagree on having too much even thought budgeting is a major activity. While it has some useful functions for businesses and organisations, it does have many limitations. Budgets consume substantial level of time and resources, but provide little credible and useful information. They add little value but encourage dysfunctional and wasteful behaviours as well as de-motivate employees.

A Voice From The South Essay examples -- essays research papers

Anna J. Cooper – A Voice from the South   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In her book, A Voice from the South, Anna J. Cooper expressly addresses two issues: the participation of women in American society and America’s race problem. These are two issues very close to Cooper as an African American woman herself and she claims to speak for all African American women on these points. She argues that for America to be a truly democratic country that has freedoms for all people, it must have participation by women and blacks.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first half of her book is concerned with the role of women in society. She compares a healthy family structure to a democratic society. In both cases, men and women have distinct roles they must fulfill in order to create a balanced, healthy environment. Since political participation for women was limited at the time of Cooper’s writing, she argued that not only were women suffering, but so was all of society. She argued that women’s sensitivity to emotion and intuition and their nurturing nature would balance out society that was controlled by aggressive and reason-oriented men. She argues that men and women are equals but their responsibilities to society are distinctive.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the second half of her book, Cooper addresses America’s race problem. She argues that, yes, there is a problem concerning race in America and the only way that it will eventually be solved is by the power and grace of God. U...

Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? Essay

â€Å"Graduating with six figures’ worth of debt is becoming increasingly common.† (179) In the essay â€Å"Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission† Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus discussed about how the price of college education is increasing, while the quality of some teachers is decreasing. Hacker and Dreifus gave tips on how to make college education successful. Hacker and Dreifus included the tips they discovered including money, faculty-student relations, classes that should be taken, graduate schools, and teaching techniques; the two also visited schools across the United States from University of Mississippi to Western Oregon and figured out what those schools were doing right to have a good success rate. Many schools have forgotten what it’s like to give a student an education that is worth their time and money. Most kids go into several thousands of dollars of debt and come out with a negligent education. If schools were to pay better atten tion to the tips given, they would be more likely to succeed in educating students. Hacker and Dreifus believe that all students should be involved in the learning process. The students must love to learn what they are learning about; but in order for that to happen teachers must love what they are teaching about and care for their students. All students must be able to use their minds. â€Å"64% of undergraduate students are enrolled in vocational majors, instead of choosing fields like philosophy, literature, or physical science.† (180) Those classes are much more difficult than general classes. Students should not be able to go through college and never be challenged; they are paying for a challenge. If a student’s relationship to faculty members is good then they will get a better education. The education shouldn’t just be the teacher not knowing names, and teaching; the relationship should be the teacher knows what the student wants to do with the degree. But, instead many teachers are apathetic when it comes to a students learning. The teacher gets paid whether they teach well or not. Another problem is many teachers are getti ng a sabbatical, which allows them to get time off every 7 years. The reasoning of sabbaticals is so teachers  can expand the research field but as Hacker and Dreifus pondered, †Do we really need that many new books or articles?†(181) The president of the school typically does no know their students. The presidents are just in the business for the money, not the student’s individual education. Some teachers try to focus on sending students to graduate school and not worry about the ones stopping their education after their two or four year degree. Schools believe that they need all of the big graduate schools on their campus. But in reality there are plenty of graduate schools in the United States. Not every school needs a graduate or medical school; in fact, â€Å"Princeton University has succeeded quite nicely without a medical school.†(182) Princeton University is an Ivy League school, and if they are doing just fine without a medical school, chances are your school will do fine also. People donate money and services to schools. That’s nice and considerate of them but most people send money to the big schools that everybody knows and hears about. Then those schools then have too many donations and begin buying unimportant things. People should try sending their money to small schools that could truly use the money and be much more thankful for it. A bundle of new teaching techniques are now available for teachers to use. Teachers need to be able to offer multiple techniques. Some techniques work better for some students, while others do not. In order for students to get the best education, they will need to use the technique that works best for them. Hacker and Dreifus visited campuses across the United States from the University of Mississippi to Western Oregon. Many of the things each of the schools had in common was that they focused on the students, had professors that cared about their field of study, and didn’t charge the most outrageous prices. â€Å"Only 10% of the classes are taught by graduate assistants† (184) was found during researching the school of Notre Dame. A school that wants to be successful cannot have a majority of classes taught by graduate assistants. Berea College and Cooper Union were both schools that students received tuition free; there were alternatives, such as labor jobs for them to pay off tuition, therefore students were not stressed about their education debt. Evergreen State College was a school that did not give letter grades. Each student was given an evaluation sheet at the end of the year. Surprisingly, the school is very successful with reports of â€Å"82% found full time employment within a year, and 93% that  applied to graduate school was accepted† (188) The teachers must pay some attention to undergraduate students, so they can succeed and hopefully go up to the next level of education. The key to a successful school is paying attention to your undergraduates and not making them pay so much money for a bad quality education. Schools need to keep in mind the tips given. Remember Hacker and Dreifus think that money, faculty-student relations, the choice of classes, the amount of graduate schools on campus, and teaching techniques are important tips to giving a student a successful education. The two learned the tips from visiting a variety of schools and doing research! WORKS CITED PAGE Hacker, Andrew and Claudia Dreifus. â€Å"Are College Worth the Price of Admission?† They say I say: With Readings. 2nd edition. Cathy Birkenstein, Gerald Graff, Russel Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 179-189. Print.

What Is Collocation - Definition in ESL Usage

Collocation refers to a group of two or more words that usually go together. A good way to think of collocation is to look at the word collocation. Co - meaning together - location - meaning place. Collocation​s  are words that are located together. A good answer to What is collocation? is: Collocation is a group of two or more words that like to hang out together. Here are some examples of common collocations that you might know: make tea - I made a cup of tea for lunch.do homework - I did all of my homework yesterday. Even though it possible to use other word combinations, understanding  collocations  help  English learners  improve their fluency because they are words that usually go together. Make and Do I begin with make and do because they provide perfect examples of why collocation is so important. Generally, make refers to things that are made that werent there before.  Do refers to actions that we take or do such as chores.   Collocations with Make make a cup of coffee / teamake noisemake the bedmake a business dealmake a fussmake sensemake time for someone Collocations with Do do the laundrydo the errandsdo business with someonedo a choredo the shopping Make and Do are perfect examples of verbs that go together with specific nouns. A verb noun combination that always go together are considered collocations. Why Do Words Collocate? There is often no reason for a collocation. People just put certain words together more often than they put other words together. In fact, the use of collocations has become popular in English and language teaching because of corpus linguistics. Corpus linguistics study huge volumes of data of spoken and written English to come up with statistics on how often people use certain words and word combinations. Through this study, corpus linguistics has been able to define what are strong and weak collocations. Collocations are used especially often in business English and there are dictionaries such as the Oxford Dictionary of Collocations that can help you learn these common collocations.   Strong Collocations Strong collocations refer to words that almost always go together. Its possible that people might understand you if you dont use a strong collocation. However, if you do not use a strong collocation it will sound funny to native speakers. Lets return to our example of make and do. If you say: I did a cup of coffee. native speakers will understand that you mean: I made a cup of coffee. Correct use of strong collocations shows an excellent command of the English language, and can certainly help impress native speakers of your ability to speak English well. Of course, if you are speaking to other non-native speakers the ability to use collocations correctly all the time becomes less important. That doesnt mean that correct collocation use is not important, its just not AS important as something like correct tense. Imagine for a moment that you are speaking about a future meeting: Our meeting was on Friday at four oclock.Ive done an appointment at four oclock for the meeting room on Friday. In both of these sentences, there are mistakes. However, in the first sentence instead of using a future tense, the past tense is used. If you want your colleagues to come to the meeting, this mistake is very serious and will lead to no one coming to the meeting. In the second sentence do an appointment is a misuse of a strong collocation. However, the meaning is clear: You have scheduled a room at four oclock. In this case, a mistake in collocations is not nearly as important as a mistake in tense usage. Here are examples of strong collocations that you might not be familiar with: high earnings (not big earnings)long-range planning (not long-time planning)urban guerrilla (not city guerrilla) More Information Why are Collocations Important? There is an entire world of collocations to explore. Learning collocations is important because you begin to learn words in larger groups or chunks of language. Putting together these chunks of language leads to more fluent English. More information on other word groups in English