Understanding Budgets

Where do budget figures come from and what they mean? Find out with this class.

Competencies:

Describe the budgeting process, identify the elements of a budget, and identify the types of budgets used within companies
Use various budget analysis methods, and justify and receive approval for a budget
Identify the purpose of and methods for preparing an operating budget, and describe zero-based and activity-based budgeting in detail
Identify the components of a manufacturing budget, describe flexible budgeting, and derive useful information from a manufacturing budget through key measurements and analysis of variance
Classify variances and use them to address performance issues, forecast budgeting periods, and formulate action plans to resolve variance issues
Describe the purpose of capital budgeting, define its terminology, and perform discounted cash flow calculations such as future value, present value, and net present value
Assemble and justify an operational budget

Find out where budget figures come from and what they mean. Gain skill in analyzing financial statements and using ratios to analyze cost information and the performance of profit centers. Understanding the budget process will improve your decision-making intelligence, enhance product strategy analysis, and help you to present budgets to senior management intelligently. This course can help managers in sales, marketing, operations, and human resources master the financial tools companies use to make decisions about products and markets.

Prerequisites:

Basic arithmetic skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and basic algebra skills (solve a simple arithmetic equation for one unknown)
Familiarity and use of Microsoft Excel will be very helpful to develop the hands-on lab for this course

e-Textbook provided.

In order to access the course materials, students must have a Bellevue College NetID. Please click here to create your NetID account.

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