To line up the various functions of the Budget Committee, to bring them together and to co-ordinate their efforts in the matter of preparation of target figures, there should be a person usually designated as the Budget Controller, who can provide ready data relating to all the functions. He is more or less the secretary to the budget committee. The Budget Controller does not control; he is a staff man; he advises but does not issue instructions.
Zero-based budgeting emerged in the late 1960s as a response to incremental budgeting. With zero-based budgeting, all budgets start at zero and activities/costs are only allowed if they are justified under investigation. All requests for resources must be presented and evaluated on the basis of cost-benefit. Zero-based budgeting is best suited to discretionary spending where there is no clearly defined input-output relationship such as in marketing, research and development, and training or public sector organization such as district councils.
Plant Utilization Budget is budget prepared for the estimation of plant capacity to meet the budgeted production during the budgeted period. It is a forecast of plant capacities available for fulfilling production requirements as specified in the production budget. This budget is expressed in working hours or other convenient units.
