3.7.1

Cash-Flow & Budgets

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Cash-Flow

Businesses can use cash-flow forecasts to estimate their total cash inflows and their total cash outflows for a future period of time.

Cash-flow forecast

Cash-flow forecast

  • Total inflows include all cash inflows coming into the business during the period.
  • Total outflows include all cash outflow leaving the business during the period.
  • Net cash flow is the difference between total inflows and total outflows.
  • The opening balance is the balance at the start of the month and is the same as the closing balance of the previous month.
Cash-flow problems

Cash-flow problems

  • Businesses that are profitable but have cash-flow or liquidity problems can become bankrupt as they lack short-term cash to pay short-term debts.
Improving cash-flow

Improving cash-flow

  • Money owed to the business is known as a receivable and businesses can reduce the trade credit period given to increase how quickly they receive their receivables, which improves cash-flow.
  • Money owed by the business to others is known as a debtor (or payables) and a business can ask others for longer trade credit to reduce how quickly they must pay payables, which improves cash-flow.

Budgets

Businesses can use budgets to forecast revenue, expenditure, and profit during a period.

Revenue budgets

Revenue budgets

  • A revenue budget forecasts expected revenues for a business during a period. If actual revenue is higher than the forecast, we call this 'favourable variance'. If revenue is less than expected, we call this 'adverse variance'.
Expenditure budgets

Expenditure budgets

  • An expenditure budget forecasts expected costs for a business during a period. A higher actual cost than forecast is an adverse variance, and a lower actual cost than forecast is a favourable variance.
Profit budgets

Profit budgets

  • Revenue and expenditure budgets can be used to create profit budgets. If overall profit is higher than forecast, there is a favourable variance. If overall profit is lower than forecast, there is an adverse variance.
Advantages of budgeting

Advantages of budgeting

  • Budgets help businesses achieve targets and objectives.
  • Budgets help managers and leaders focus on cost control which can increase profit.
  • Budgets can be used to motivate staff by providing spending authority to individual departments and teams.
    • For example, many hospitals assign budgets to individual departments and this motivates department managers and staff within departments as they are given authority to place orders.
Jump to other topics
1

Business Organisation & Environment

1.1

Introduction to Business Management

1.1.1Why Businesses Exist & Sectors
1.2

Types of Organisation

1.2.1Sole Traders1.2.2Limited Liability1.2.3Non-Profit1.2.4Franchising1.2.5End of Topic Test - Franchising
1.3

Organisational Objectives

1.3.1External Environments1.3.2Business Mission & Corporate Objective1.3.3Mission, Corporate Objectives & Strategy1.3.4SWOT Analysis1.3.5End of Topic Test - SWOT Analysis
1.4

Stakeholders

1.4.1Stakeholders
1.5

External Environment

1.5.1Social & Technological Environment1.5.2Lifestyle & Technological Environment1.5.3Corporate Social Responsibility1.5.4Economic Environment1.5.5Political & Legal Change
1.6

Growth & Evolution

1.6.1Growth & Retrenchment1.6.2Challenges of Growth1.6.3Growth Models1.6.4End of Topic Test - Diseconomies of Scale1.6.5Internationalisation1.6.6Sourcing Resources & Entering Markets1.6.7End of Topic Test - Internationalisation1.6.8Managing Internationalisation1.6.9Impact of Internationalisation
1.7

HL Only: Organisational Planning Tools

1.7.1Organisational Planning Tools
2

Human Resource Management

2.1

Functions & Evolution of Human Resource Management

2.1.1Setting Human Resource Objectives2.1.2Human Resource Management2.1.3Labour Turnover & Retention2.1.4Labour Productivity
2.2

Organisational Structure

2.2.1Organisational Structures
2.3

Leadership & Management

2.3.1Managers2.3.2Management Theories2.3.3End of Topic Test - Management
2.4

Motivation

2.4.1Motivating & Engaging Employees2.4.2Taylor's Theory2.4.3Maslow's Theory2.4.4Herzberg's Theory2.4.5Different Incentives2.4.6Evaluating Incentives
2.5

Organisational (Corporate) Culture

2.5.1Managing Organisational Culture2.5.2Organisational Structures
2.6

HL Only: Industrial/Employee Relations

2.6.1Improving Employer-Employee Relations2.6.2Case Study - The Winter of Discontent
3

Finance & Accounts

3.1

Sources of Finance

3.1.1Internal Sources of Finance3.1.2External Sources of Finance3.1.3Factors for Financing3.1.4End of Topic Test - Debt
3.2

Costs & Revenues

3.2.1Costs & Revenues
3.3

Break-Even Analysis

3.3.1Profit3.3.2Break-Even Analysis
3.4

Profitability & Liquidity Ratio Analysis

3.4.1Profitability Analysis
3.5

Cash Flow

3.5.1Cash Flow3.5.2Solutions to Cash Flow Problems3.5.3Improving Cash Flow & Profits
3.6

HL Only: Investment Appraisal

3.6.1Investment Appraisal
3.7

HL Only: Budgets

3.7.1Cash-Flow & Budgets
4

Marketing

4.1

The Role of Marketing

4.1.1Setting Marketing Objectives4.1.2Market Calculations
4.2

Marketing Planning

4.2.1Marketing Mix4.2.2Segmentation4.2.3Niche & Mass Markets
4.3

Market Research

4.3.1Market Research4.3.2Market Mapping4.3.3Methods of Market Research
4.4

The 4 Ps

4.4.1Product Decisions4.4.2Pricing Decisions & Price Skimming4.4.3Pricing Decisions & Price Penetration4.4.4End of Topic Test - Pricing & Competition4.4.5Promotional Decisions4.4.6Promotional Decisions 24.4.7Promotional Decisions 34.4.8Digital Marketing4.4.9Evaluating Digital Marketing4.4.10Case Study - The Marketing Mix & Promotion4.4.11Place & Distribution
4.5

HL Only: The Extended Marketing Mix

4.5.1The Extended Marketing Mix
4.6

HL Only: International Marketing

4.6.1International Marketing
4.7

E-Commerce

4.7.1E-Commerce
5

Operations Management

5.1

The Role of Operations Management

5.1.1Setting Operational Objectives
5.2

Production Methods

5.2.1Production Processes Overview5.2.2Production Processes5.2.3Production Efficiency5.2.4Technology & Production
5.3

HL Only: Lean Prodution & Quality Management

5.3.1Importance of Quality5.3.2Measuring & Identifying Quality5.3.3Total Quality Management5.3.4Evaluating Total Quality Management5.3.5Case Study - Toyota Production System
5.4

HL Only: Production Planning

5.4.1Capacity5.4.2Productivity & Efficiency5.4.3Technology & Efficiency5.4.4Improving the Supply Chain5.4.5Inventory5.4.6Outsourcing
5.5

HL Only: Research & Development

5.5.1Organisational Planning Tools

Practice questions on Cash-Flow & Budgets

Can you answer these? Test yourself with free interactive practice on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

  1. 1
    What is the formula for net cash flow?Multiple choice
  2. 2
    What can improve cash-flow?Fill in the list
  3. 3
    What does favourable variance mean?Multiple choice
  4. 4
    What does favourable variance mean?Multiple choice
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Investment Appraisal

Setting Marketing Objectives