A finished ACC-260 Topic 6 linked budget schedules example, carrying a sales forecast through production, purchases and cash, with every handoff between departments marked and one financing decision reached. Searches like "acc 260 topic 6 assignment example", "acc260 topic 6 sample" and "acc-260 topic 6 example" land here.
What a finished ACC-260 Topic 6 linked budget schedules looks like
The finished budget is a chain of four schedules in which each total appears again as the next one's starting line. The sales schedule sets volume and price by month. The production schedule takes that volume, adds an ending inventory the managers agreed on, and subtracts what is already on the shelf: in the illustrative April, 1,200 candles sold plus 300 held for May less 240 on hand calls for 1,260 poured. Purchases of wax and wicks follow from production, and the cash schedule follows from sales collections and purchase payments on their actual timing. Every link is labeled with the department that owns the input. The cash schedule reveals a shortfall in the second month, and the example ends by recommending the size and timing of the short-term borrowing that covers it.
How an ACC-260 Topic 6 example is structured
The example is arranged in the order the schedules depend on one another. It opens with an assumptions page listing the forecast, the inventory policy, the collection pattern and the supplier terms, each attributed to the manager who supplied it. A second part is the sales schedule with expected cash collections beneath it, since customers pay later than they buy. A third part is the production schedule, showing the inventory policy turning sales into pours. A fourth part converts production into materials purchases and the payments owed on them. A fifth part assembles the cash budget from those pieces, month by month, with a minimum balance stated. A sixth part flags every point where one schedule waited on another department's figure. The close names the borrowing the second month requires and the month in which the loan can be repaid.
Assumptions attributed to their owners
The forecast belongs to sales, the inventory policy to production and the payment terms to purchasing, and each is labeled so disagreements have somewhere to go.
Each total reused as an input
A schedule's final line reappears as the opening line of the next, so a change in the sales forecast visibly ripples through every later figure.
Inventory policy turning sales into pours
Ending stock is set at a fifth of the following month's sales, which is why April production exceeds April sales by sixty candles.
Timing kept separate from totals
Collections and payments are scheduled when cash actually moves rather than when sales and purchases occur, which is where a profitable quarter can still run short.
The handoffs flagged in the margin
Every figure one department needed from another is marked, since the budget works only when those numbers are agreed in the same order.
A borrowing decision at the end
The cash shortfall in the second month becomes a stated loan amount and a repayment month, so the budget finishes with something the owner approves.
Where marks go in ACC-260 Topic 6
Budgets built as four unconnected tables are the characteristic loss here. When the production schedule uses a volume that is not the one on the sales schedule, the budget contradicts itself, and a marker who traces one number through the chain finds the break quickly. Ignoring the inventory policy, so that production simply equals sales, removes the step that makes the budget a coordination exercise at all. Cash schedules recording sales as cash in the month of sale overstate early receipts and hide the shortfall the scenario was written to produce. Assumptions scattered through the schedules without a source leave nobody accountable for the forecast. A cash budget showing a negative balance and then moving on, with no financing decision, treats the most important line in the quarter as a curiosity.
Get an ACC-260 Topic 6 example written to your instructions
Send the ACC-260 Topic 6 instructions, the rubric from your classroom and the forecast, policies and terms your scenario provides. A custom example gets prepared to those criteria, with the schedules linked in order, each input attributed, collections and payments timed correctly and a financing decision drawn from the cash budget, in 24 to 48 hours. There is no charge for the first one.
ACC-260 Topic 6 questions, answered
Why start with sales and not with costs?
Because almost every other figure in an operating budget depends on how much the company expects to sell. Production follows sales, purchases follow production and most variable costs follow both, so a budget started anywhere else has to guess at volume and then revise. The fixed costs can be listed independently, but even their adequacy is judged against the level of activity the sales forecast implies.
What is the inventory policy doing in a budget?
It is a decision somebody made about how much stock to hold, and it is the reason production differs from sales in any given month. Holding more protects against a stockout and ties up cash; holding less frees cash and risks lost sales. Stating the policy, and who set it, is part of what turns a forecast into a plan several managers have agreed to.
Is a cash shortfall a sign the budget is wrong?
Usually the reverse. A seasonal business often pays for materials before its customers pay for finished goods, and the cash budget exists to show that gap early enough to arrange financing. A shortfall the budget predicted is a planning success. One nobody noticed until the account was overdrawn is exactly what the schedule exists to head off.