Question

What is a zero-based budget? Participative budget?

Answer 1

Zero - based budget: Zero-based budgeting is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. Zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base" and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period regardless of whether the budget is higher or lower than the previous one.

ZBB allows top-level strategic goals to be implemented into the budgeting process by tying them to specific functional areas of the organization. Costs can be first grouped, then measured against previous results and current expectations.

Participative budget

Participative budgeting is a budgeting process under which those people impacted by a budget are actively involved in the budget creation process.

This bottom-up approach to budgeting tends to create budgets that are more achievable than are top-down budgets that are imposed on a company by senior management, with much less participation by employees. Participatory budgeting is also better for morale, and tends to result in greater efforts by employees to achieve what they predicted in the budget. However, a purely participative budget does not take high-level strategic considerations into account, so management needs to provide employees with guidelines regarding the overall direction of the company, and how their individual departments fit into that direction.