14 July 2004
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) have produced a report on budgeting following a jointly organised Better Budgeting forum. The report provides a snapshot of the current best practice in some of the UK's leading organisations.
Budgets are often pilloried as being out of touch with the needs of the modern business and accused of taking too long to complete and costing too much, according to the report.
But the participants at the recent Better Budgeting event recognised that, despite the shortcomings, budgets and the accompanying processes are still important.
Danka Starovic, Senior Technical Issues Manager, CIMA said: "The key message of this report is that budgeting has been adapting to the needs of the modern companies. Instead of being about cost-cutting, budgets are now more about contributing to value creation. The overall framework of control they provide is indispensable."
Chris Jackson, Head of Faculty of Finance & Management at ICAEW said: "Companies are looking to the finance team to work across the business to pull together both financial and non-financial information for the budget process today. This report highlights best practice in this area."
Download a copy of Better Budgeting.
For further information, contact Louisa Roberts, press officer, on 020 8849 2427 or at louisa.roberts@cimaglobal.com
CIMA members are Accountants in Business. We represent financial managers and accountants who work in industry, commerce, not-for-profit and public sector organisations. Our key activities are related to Business Strategy, Information Strategy and Finance Strategy. CIMA members are not trained in audit.
CIMA's focus is to qualify students, support members and employers, and protect the public interest. We represent the voice of over 77,000 students and 60,000 members in 154 countries.
CIMA's focus on management functions makes us unique, and we are internationally recognised as offering the financial qualification for business.
CIMA is 'rapidly becoming the chartered qualification of choice' according to recent independent research*, and we work with leading employers in the UK and around the world to train and qualify financial managers. We pride ourselves on the commercial relevance of our syllabus, which is continually enhanced to reflect the latest developments in business. In an age of growing globalisation and intensified competition, the Chartered Management Accountant is fully prepared to meet the need for timely and accurate financial information.
Our members and students work across all business sectors at all levels throughout the world, demonstrating the flexibility of the qualification.
