BUDGET AND BUDGETARY CONTROL AS A MANAGERIAL TOOL IN AN ORGANIZATION

INTRODUCTION

The resources of an organization should be managed effectively and efficiently to achieve its purpose. This implies that the organization should be able to achieve its objectives by minimizing cost. Thus managing implies co-ordination and control of the efforts of the organization for achieving organizational objectives. The process of managing is facilitated when management charts its future course of certain objectives in advance, and takes decision in a professional manner, utilizing the individual and group efforts in a coordinated rational manner. One systematic approach for attaining effective management performance is budgeting. Budgets are monetized expressions of target to be accomplished in a given year by an individual, organization or nation. It is a deliberate attempt to achieve superior targets over time with available and expected resources. Such targets are influenced by the experiences of the past and expectation of the future.

  Basically, a budget system enables management more effectively to plan, coordinate, control and evaluates its activities. It is a device intended to provide greater effectiveness in achieving organizational efficiency. To be effective, however, the functional aspects must outweigh the dysfunctional aspects. Because a budget plan exists, decisions are not merely spontaneous reactions to stimuli in an environment of unclassified goals.

It is pertinent to note that management activities are the driving force behind every organization and of course necessarily unavoidable. These activities – planning, organizing, directing and controlling of economic resources, are schematized to reflect the nature and objectives of the organization and must be tailored towards the attainment of the overall organization’s predetermined objectives. Consequently, it is important to systematically and objectively assess the relevant, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the activities in the light of the budget. In this context, therefore, the concern is to use the budgetary procedures to evaluate management activities.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

As we now launch into the 21st century, organizations worldwide, both private and public, have realized the need to restructure and overhaul their activities for a better quality service delivery pattern. One of the most radically affected aspects of these organizations is the budget and budgetary control. Recognizing the role of budget and budgetary control lending organizations leverage so much on it, in the private sector, several departments, whose main business is the implementation and monitoring of budgets, have been established. In the public sector, budget monitoring and project implementation committees have become an integral part of the administrations. In fact, the soundness or otherwise of the budget is adjudged by all as a to sine quo non for effective management.

In the present area of cyber space management, where information and communication technology is the main resource, budget and budgetary control are also