What Is Capital Budgeting & It’s Process

Capital Budgeting is a financial process that’s followed by several companies starting from SMEs to MNCs. As per this process, the expenditure on large projects such as buying fixed assets, investing in tools and resources, and funding research and development is calculated. Since all of these are heavy expenses, it is essential to set a budget for them, to ensure optimal income and revenue.

Capital budgeting as a concept and as a profession is gaining momentum because companies are now realising how important it has become for their revenue and expenditures efficiently. The covid pandemic has instilled a sense of financial management among all business owners. By bringing in capital budgeting as a part of the financial process, the companies can set long-term financial goals and ensure seamless functioning. 

What is Capital Budgeting?

Capital budgeting, as mentioned earlier, is the technique of analysing expenditures to track the revenue gained from these expenditures. These expenditures are often project-based. If a company is confused between two projects, with the help of capital budgeting, they would be able to analyse whether they would be able to invest in one project or both. In case they have the budget to only invest in one project, then based on the investment and revenue analysis provided by the capital budgeting, the company will go ahead with any one project. 

The Process of Capital Budgeting

Wondering what the process of capital budgeting seems like? Here’s a glimpse into the real picture.

• Identifying the project and creating it: The initial step involved in capital budgeting is to identify the investment opportunities and create a proposal for the same. These projects need to be based on high returns so that the management can approve them on the basis of profitability. These projects could either be an extension of the existing product range or something entirely new.
• Project evaluation and analysis: Based on the company’s short-term and long-term objectives, the project needs to be formulated. While evaluating the project, details of the overall expenditure, time spent and the expected benefits need to be calculated and presented to the management in order to make a sound decision.
• Controlling capital expenditure: While selecting the project based on the revenue is the main objective of capital budgeting, it is not the end. The expenditure still needs to be controlled. The process of capital budgeting ensures that the expenses are further controlled by setting the right budget.
• Searching the right fund sources: The Capital Budgeting Incharge needs to quantify the total expenditure to ensure the funds that need to be borrowed and from where exactly. A balance needs to be created between funds borrowed from different sources and the revenue distribution.

Factors affecting Capital Budgeting

Capital budgeting is interdependent on several other financial factors that make this process more intensive and requires multiple tasks to be carried out. If you are planning to enter this profession, here is a list of tasks you will have to look after.

• Understanding the need for a project
• Creating a project
• Finalising the working capital
• Structuring the working capital
• Analysing the economic value of the project
• Checking the availability of funds
• Finding the lending terms of the financial institutions
• Reading up on taxation policies 
• Reading up on government policies 
• Using accounting methods
• Forecasting capital returns

Capital Budgeting Tools

While capital assets are only a small part of the company’s total assets, they still are the ones in line with the organisation’s long-term goals. They are strategically planned in order to generate revenue. Capital budgeting professionals that hope to maximise their revenue are always on the lookout for investment opportunities. 

Here are some of the capital budgeting tools used by professionals to prepare a full-proof model.

• Internal rate of return calculation
• Net present value report
• Profitability index
• Accounting rate of return
• Pay period 

Deciding on Capital Budgeting 

Since the major goal of capital budgeting is increased profitability, the selection of the project is based on maximum revenue or reduced costs. Here’s a glimpse of how most capital budgeting decisions are made.

1. Accept/Reject Decision: Generally the projects that yield a higher return on investment get accepted while the ones that do not seem as profitable often tend to get rejected. Most independent projects get approved, but those competing with one another have a chance of being further shortlisted.

2. Mutually exclusive project decision: As mentioned earlier, competing projects have a chance of being further shortlisted. If there are 5 such proposals submitted at the same time then the acceptance of any type would mean the others get rejected instantly. This is referred to as a mutually exclusive project decision.

3. Capital rationing decision: In a case where a firm has a huge chunk of capital to invest in the projects the proposals submitted at an individual level get accepted quite easily. The rest of the proposals are then rated as per the revenue they might bring in and the acceptance of the proposals depends on the ranking.

We hope that with this detailed article on capital budgeting you have received an in-depth understanding of what the profession looks like and what to expect. If you are interested in getting into this exciting and equally dynamic field, then pursuing an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Course  or US CMA Course degree is the direction to take. To know more about each of these degrees click on the WhatsApp icon at the side of this blog and get in touch with our experts directly.