Activity-Based Budgeting

This process is used to create a budget based on planned activities. This includes the required resources and related costs for each activity.

The activities are a part of an activity plan. An activity plan is the basis for a resource plan that shows the resources required to carry out the activities. Resource plans also show available resources, so these can be compared to the required resources.

Before you start

  • Your company must have a well-defined policy for how to handle and process budgeting.
  • Activities must be specified in ‘Budget Activity. Open’ (BUS010).
  • Resources must be specified in ‘Budget Resource. Open’ (BUS015).
  • Costs must be specified for each resource. More than one cost can be specified for each resource. Each cost consists of the price of the cost, the accounting identity 1 to be used and, if necessary, an accounting curve. The costs for resources are specified in ‘Budg Resource. Connect Cost Components’ (BUS016), which is reached by using option 11=‘Cost component’ in (BUS015).
  • The resources required to carry out an activity must be specified for each activity. This is done in ‘Budget Activity. Connect Budg Resources’ (BUS011), which is reached by using option 11=‘Conn resources’ in (BUS010).
  • Budget officers must be specified. This is due to the fact that all activities are specified per budget officer. For each budget officer, information on accounting dimension 2 to 7 is specified. The information is used when transferring the resource plan to a budget. Budget officers are specified in ‘Budget Officer. Open’ (BUS035).
  • The available resources must be specified, indicating the scheduled resources available for each budget officer and period. This is done in ‘Budget Officer. Connect Budg Resources’ (BUS036), which is reached by using option 11=‘Avail resources’ in (BUS035).
  • A central budget with basic data must be specified in ‘Budget. Open’ (BUS100).

Outcome

The resource plan is transferred to a central budget after using this process. During the transfer, the number of activities multiplied by the number of available or required resources is recorded and made into budget transactions.

Follow these steps

  1. Specify activities in activity plan

  2. Transfer activity plan to resource plan

  3. Adjust resource plan

  4. Transfer resource plan to budget

Specify Activities in Activity Plan

For each budget officer, budget number, version and period, you specify activities in ‘Budget. Connect Budget Activity’ (BUS160). The specified information makes up the activity plan, which can be printed for review. The plan can also be changed when necessary.

Transfer Activity Plan to Resource Plan

The activities in the plan are then multiplied by the number of resources required to carry them out. This is done in ‘Budget. Connect Budget Activity’ (BUS160). This results in a resource plan.

Adjust Resource Plan

The resource plan contains the resources required according to the activity plan as well as the available resources specified for each budget officer. Therefore, this shows whether the budget officer has too many or too few resources to carry out the activities. Resources can then be added or deleted as necessary in ‘Budget. Connect Budget Resource’ (BUS170).

Transfer Resource Plan to Budget

After adjusting the resource plan you can use it to create budget transactions. This is done in (BUS170). The number of each resource in the plan is multiplied by the costs connected to the resource and a budget transaction is created. Note that the greater value of the number of resources or available resources is used in the calculation.

Description

The example below describes activity-based budgeting, which includes creating an activity plan, resource plan and budget.

Assume a budget officer must carry out 2,000 customer visits. Each visit takes 8 hours of a sales resource and 2 hours of a sales assistant resource. In this case, the activity plan contains 2,000 customer visits.

The resource plan contains 16,000 hours of sales resources and 4,000 hours of sales assistant resources. These average yearly and hourly costs are related to a salesperson, based on 1,760 hours worked annually.

Annual Cost Hourly Cost
Salary 500,000 284.09
Social Security 160,000 90.91
Travel 50,000 28.41
Other 25,000 14.20

The sales assistant has these costs:

Annual Cost Hourly Cost
Salary 300,000 170.45
Social Security 96,000 54.55

The budget for this example has these cost components:

Salary 16,000 x 284.09 + 4,000 x 170.45=5,227,240
Social Security 16,000 x 90.91 + 4,000 x 54.55=1,672,760
Travel 16,000 x 28.41=454,560
Other 16,000 x 14.20=227,200
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