8605-420 Budgetary Planning and Control

Unit Overview

Managers at different levels of the organisation must be able to effectively plan their budgets and control the spending in their areas of responsibility. It is, therefore, important for training organisations to provide platforms for the leaders to acquire the necessary information that aids in supporting their budgeting skills and abilities to improve the performance of these tasks as managers in their areas of responsibility. 8605-420 Budgetary Planning and Control is a unit within the ILM Level 4 module that focuses on providing this support.

The learners in this unit are guided to understand critical information of the budgetary planning and control process that is relevant in improving their performance in managerial tasks and ensures that they are able to contribute to boosting the financial performance of the organisation by influencing the performance in their areas of responsibility. This unit helps to conduct a review of the efficiency of strategies put up within the organisation to ensure that leaders can influence the activities and performances of the organisation.

Additionally, it guides in understanding effective budget management and control tasks, which are critical for monitoring and managing financial performance and the use of financial resources. The main purpose and aim of the unit is to improve the understanding of proper strategies, construction and control of budges that can be used by the organisations to manage its performance and ensure that it is able to achieve both the financial and strategic objectives set out. The unit is taught in 6 hours of guided learning and has a credit value in the completion of the ILM Level 4 module.

Suitability of the Unit

Managers and leaders within the organisation must develop skills and abilities to effectively utilise financial resources based on the guidelines and constraints that are outlined within the organisation to ensure they facilitate success in accomplishing organisational goals and objectives. As such, budgetary planning and control is a critical area of study to achieve this aspect that is relevant for all leaders and stakeholders within the organisation.

8605-420 Budgetary Planning and Control is a unit that is specifically designed to meet the learning needs of middle-level managers as well as other individuals at the leadership and management levels. Ti provides relevant information and skills that help this organisational leader not only improve their performance in budgeting and use of financial resources but also to boost the influence that they have over the organisation's culture in relation to the budgetary process and activities.

The unit is, however, also important to the employees. It helps employees and lower levels of leadership within the organisation to develop effective professional and personal practices and behaviours that are aligned with effective management of the budgeting processes and strategies. They are able to effectively handle assigned financial resources to effectively accomplish their Tasks and responsibilities within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Review the efficiency of budgetary planning activities and the process in general set out within their organisation and its role in supporting the accomplishment of strategic objectives and policies

• Review the effectiveness of the allocation of responsibilities within the organisations that facilitate effective budget management and control.

• Determine the efficiency of the organisation in relation to budgets hence determining efficiency of allocation of resources aimed at clearing objectives and outputs that contribute to achieving organisational objectives

• Provide actionable recommendations aimed at improving the budgetary planning and implementation process within the organisation

• Review systems and approaches within the organisation, such as procedures and reporting mechanisms used in handling and monitoring the budgetary process

• Recommend improvement to the tools of measuring, monitoring and reporting performance against budgets and their objectives

Key Learning Areas

8605-420 Budgetary Planning and Control focuses on building awareness and understanding of budget control strategies and approaches. As such, the learning areas within this unit focus on improving both the theory and practice related to effective development of budgeting processes and implementing effective review measures to ensure the process is successful. The unit focuses on:

Budgetary Planning

This area of learning helps the learners to have mastery of the implication of budgetary control. It helps them to understand the principles of budgetary control and its differences from financial control, which also involves handling financial resources within the organisation. The learners are also able to prepare effective budgets that are based on the principle budget factor established within their areas of responsibility or organisation in general.

In this area of learning, learners are supported to ensure there is a level of alignment of budgets and techniques of managing budgets to their managerial responsibilities. Lastly, they are helped to understand the different elements of processes designed to achieve budgetary planning, characteristics of a good budget, budget organisation and administration and advantages/ problems of budgetary planning and control.

Monitoring of Performance Against Budgets

Leaners must be able to understand the budget planning and control systems. This area of learning helps to improve the awareness and mastery of both theory and practice associated with controlling the systems hence facilitating success in achieving the organisational goals and objectives. This area of learning provides the learners with the skills to effectively evaluate and monitor the budgets by identifying specific factors such as expenditure and income that provide a rationale for determining patterns towards aching the organisational goals and objectives.

They also helped to develop an understanding of effective reporting techniques based on budget control techniques hence improving the ability to effectively conduct variance analysis and facilitate management action and cost control. On top of that, this area builds the confidence of the learners in effectively making recommendations based on budgetary planning and control. The learners are able to effectively compare results with budgets and assign responsibilities for variance within the organisations to individuals who have control action over the original budgets building contribution to the organisational performance.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners should exhibit an understanding of effective budgetary control systems and strategies. This understanding is evaluated through a written assessment which the learners are required to complete. Formative assessment such as supervised practice are also used to ensure the learner is able to use learned content in a practical context.