Budgeting process in the business environment

Abstract

Budgeting is a managerial accounting tool which primarily focuses on the future. Traditional budgeting methods are widely used across many different businesses, however they remain the subject of much discussion among managers, economists and academics alike. Over the last few decades a growing scepticism can be observed with regards to the efficacy and poor adaptability of budgeting in the current business environment. The criticisms centre around the annual basis of budgets and the preference to use budgeting as a control tool. The introduction to this paper presents an overview of the trends within the discipline of budgeting on the basis of a literature review of publications and information garnered from scientific databases. The main part of the study presents the results of a survey focused on the budgeting process in the business environment. The sample consists of medium-sized and large Czech companies. The main objective of the survey was to assess the predictability of selected factors in the business environment through the budgeting process and to assess how effectively budgeting can adapt to market changes.