HISTORY OVERVIEW: 

The use of budget in government long preceded its application in business or the business sector. In the stable economic environment of the period before world war, few large companies in U.S.A and U.K used budgets. The result of the use of budget conflicted, some pioneer companies reported it was a significant tool to management but reported it has an ill or even a negative effect on efficiency and productivity. In order to avoid the conflicting result of the large segment still straddled the fence awaiting further information and a more definite result. The world depression of the 1929 and its attendant business worries and trouble made the use of budgeting imperative in order to plane the growth of the enterprise. The population of budgeting was the direct outcome of two inquiries conducted to assess the benefit or otherwise as budget as applied of for the industry. The national industrial conference board sat in U.S.A while the international management institute worked in Geneva. Both were inaugurated in 1930.

The concept of business budgeting is even more resent in Nigeria. It was introduced by the first foreign multinational that operated in Nigeria and gradually a small firm adopted it.

The ultimate goal of any business organization is to maximize profit, which can result fo4rm the management conscious effort to increase sale/render efficient service and reduce cost. In the attainment of this subsidiary goal, management must have a careful prepared and articulated business and organizational plane, a rational plane commitment of the scarce resources and a thorough scanning of the environment in which it exist. In the other word, the enterprise was plane and controls its operation for the attainment of the organizational goal.

In a total business environment, business operation is complex and subject to heavy competitive pressure. In such an environment, many kinds of charge occur like frustration in the economy, which call for adjustment in the enterprise. In addition, the ingestible find are scarcer and the cost of such fund is estimably prohibitive. All this complexity put a wedge between business form and attainment of its set objective. But the firm must take a positive action in regarded to the difficulties in order not to go under. The firm must plane ahead. Planning ahead entailed articulation of cooperate mission, determine where a firm is at the moment, deciding on where it want to go and how fast, how to get there and what to do along the way to reduce uncertainty and to mange the risk and changes. Planning ahead entails internal scanning to determine the enterprise strength and weakness which can provide the management with a better understanding of the firm operation n relation to the general environment which increase understanding and leading to a faster reaction of the unfolding events.

Environmental scanning is also carried out which form the basis for the environmental assumption. The business objective must by clearly set out and disseminated t all level of business organization and management, personnel effectively sensitized towards their achievement also essential is the internal co-ordination of the personnel and function. But most importantly, the enterprise must forecast its need for fund over a giving period of time, secure them on very competitive terms and utilize the fund in the most rational ways.

Indeed the survival of modern business involve wise management even more than that, it needs scientific technique and such technique of the budgeting and budgeting control, variance accounting and other high Techniquecal forecasting device have all come to the aid of management to increase the performance of the firm.

Budget according to management of institute of chattered accounting (CIMA) is simply a plane management of money and which is prepared and improve prior to the budget and may show under the expenditure and capital employed. On ht other hand, institute of certified management of accountant define it as a financial statement prepared and approve prior to the define period of time of the policy to be pursued during that period for the purpose of archiving a set objective. It serves as a quantitative expression of a planed action and can aid in coordination and implementation. It could be formulated of the organization as a whole or for a small sub – unit.

Once a budget has been prepared and is approved, its usefulness depends upon the wiliness of the company executive to follow up to determine if the cost are been controlled and if the desired income is been earned in accordance with he plane of the operation.

Controlling operating involves management in a number of processes and requires several different kinds of information. It involves converting to management planes into an operating pattern w8ich match the planes into which a company is divided. This change the overall detailed lane into an operating plane, which rates to the management structure of the company, and this thus leads to budgeting 

Budgets are drowned up for control purpose. It ia an attempt to control the direction and plane the company is taking. This brings up the issue of budgeting control. Budgeting control is the means of deterring the extent to, which the planed goal and objective are attain. It involves assigning responsibilities for the achievement of the budget, measuring the actual performance and compare them with the estimate. Control ensures that the action is taking where necessary and possible to reduce the gap between budgeting and actual performance. That entails taking action in variance and close supervision of the workers in the organization.

Budgeting control can also be said to be the use of budget for assigning responsibility, planning and controlling performance and guiding the managerial and other activities of the firm toward the achievement of the organizational objective