Chapter 14, Problem 1E

Exercise 7-1A Budget responsibility

Teresa Flanagan, the accountant, is a perfectionist. No one can do the job as well as she can. Indeed, she has found budget information provided by the various departments to be worthless. She must change everything they give her. She has to admit that her estimates have not always been accurate, but she shudders to think of what would happen if she used the information supplied by the marketing and operating departments. No one seems to care about accuracy. Indeed, some of the marketing staff have even become insulting. When Ms. Flanagan confronted one of the salespeople with the fact that he was behind in meeting his budgeted sales forecast, he responded by saying. “They’re your numbers. Why don’t you go out and make the sales? It’s a heck of a lot easier to sit there in your office and make up numbers than it is to get out and get the real work done.” Ms. Flanagan reported the incident, but, of course, nothing was done about it.

Required

Write a short report suggesting how the budgeting process could be improved.