Page 58 - Budgeting for Managers

3

Gathering

Production

Figures

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it.
—George Santayana
he future will not be the same as the past. We hope it will be
Tbetter. But the past is a good place to start when we want to
make our budget for the future. We can learn four things from
the past:
• How records were organized and kept
• How much money was earned or spent at a particular
time
• What trends show up in the past that may continue into
the future
•What relationships there are among items in our budget
A simple example will illustrate how the relationship among
line items in our budget is useful for estimation.
Suppose you want to estimate copy shop expenses for the

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