Unit 5 Flashcards
What are financial objectives?
Financial objectives are financial goals that a business wants to achieve. Businesses usually have specific targets in mind and a specific period of time to achieve them.
The financial objectives will be set by financial managers and will help the business achieve its corporate objectives and they must be consistent with the financial objectives of other departments.
What is revenue objectives?
Revenue objectives are objectives that want to increase the value or volume of sales.
What are cost objectives?
Cost objectives are objectives that are set to reduce costs.
What are profit objectives?
Profit objectives might set a target figure for profit or for a percentage increase from the previous year.
What are cash flow objectives?
Cash flow is all the money flowing into and out of the business over a period of time.
Cash flow objectives are put in place to help prevent cash flow problems.
What is capital?
Capital is simply wealth in the form or other assets owned by a business.
What is capital expenditure?
This is the money spent to buy fixed assets, which are things that can be used over and over again like factories and vehicles.
What is capital structure?
This refers to the way a business raises capital to purchase assets. A businesses capital structure refers is a combination of its debt capital and its equity capital.
What are the internal factors influencing financial objectives?
The overall objectives of the business - Financial objectives need to be consistent with the corporate objectives of the business.
The status of the business - New businesses might set ambitious targets for revenue because they are trying to grow quickly and establish themselves in the marketplace.
Other areas of the business - Financial objectives might be limited by what is happening in other departments of the business.
What are the external factors influencing financial objectives?
The availability of finance - Cash flow targets might depend on how easy it is for the business to get credit.
Competitors - If new competitors enter the market you might have to do something that makes you more competitive.
The economy - in a period of economic boom, businesses can set ambitious targets.
Shareholders - Shareholders usually want the best possible return on investment .
Environmental/ethical influences - like fair trade.
What is cash inflow and outflow?
Cash inflow are sums of money received by a business.
Cash outflows are sums of money paid out by a business.
How can businesses improve cash flow?
Overdrafts can be arranged with banks to allow a business to borrow money according to its needs up to a present amount.
Businesses can try to hold less stock, so less cash is tied up in stock. But this could cause problems if there is a sudden increase in demand for a product, as they may run out.
Credit controllers keep debtors in control.
What is cash flow forecast?
Cash flow forecasts (also called cash budgets) show the amount that managers expect to flow into the business and flow out of the business over a period of time over a period of time.
Why isn’t cash flow forecasting accurate?
Cash flow forecasts can be based on false assumptions about what is going to happen.
Circumstances can change suddenly after the forecast’s been made. Costs can go up or machinery can break.
A good cash flow needs a lot of experience and lots of research into the market.
What is a budget?
A budget forecasts future earnings and future spending.
What is the difference between income and expenditure budgets?
Income budgets forecast the amount of money that will come into the company as revenue. To do this a company needs to predict how much it will sell, and what the price is.
Expenditure budgets predict what the business’s total costs will be for the year, taking into account both fixed and variable costs.
How can budgets affect all areas of a business?
The expenditure budget forecasts total expenditure. This is broken down into department expenditure budgets.
Budget holders are people responsible for spending or generating the money for each budget.
What are the benefits of budgeting?
Budgets help to achieve targets like keeping costs low and revenue high.
Budgets help control income and expenditure.
Budgeting helps managers to review their activities and make decisions.
Budgeting helps focus on priorities.
Budget let heads of department delegate authority to budget holders.
What are the disadvantages of budgeting?
Budgeting can cause resentment and rivalry if departments have to compete for money.
Budgets can be restrictive. Fixed budgets stop firms responding to changing market conditions.
Budgeting is time consuming.
Inflation is difficult to predict.
How do budgets affect how flexible a business can be?
Fixed budgets provide discipline and certainty. This is important for a business with liquidity problems.
Fixed budgeting means budget holders have to stick to their budget throughout the year.
Flexible budgeting allows budgets to be altered in response to significant changes in the market or economy.
What is the difference between favourable and adverse variance?
A variance means the business is performing either worse or better than expected.
A favourable variance leads to increased profit. If revenue’s more than the budget say it’s going to be favourable and also if costs are below the cost predictions.
An adverse variance is a difference that reduces profits. Selling fewer items than the income budget predicts or spending more on an advert than the expenditure budget.
How can variances be bad?
When variances occur, it means that what has happened is not what the business was expecting. Businesses need to know about variances so that they can find out why they have occurred.
It is extremely important to spot adverse variances as soon as possible. It is important to find out which budget holder is responsible.
What external factors and internal factors affect variances?
External factors -
Competitor behaviour and changing fashions may increase or reduce demand for products.
Changes in the economy can change how much wages workers are.
Internal factors -
Improving effeciency
A business might overestimate the amount of money it can save.
What is variance analysis?
Variance analysis means spotting variances and figuring out why they have happened so that action can be taken to fix them.
Small variances arent a big problem. They can actually help to motivate employees.
Large variances can demotivate. Staff dont work hard if there are large favourable variances.
