Can Students Studying Abroad use Forward Exchange Rates as a Tool for Better Budgeting Their Semesters?

Traveling abroad requires an immense amount of planning and attention to detail. Budgeting is a difficult task in one’s own country, but when planning across borders, that task becomes even greater. Differences in exchange rates and buying power have the potential to adversely affect the budget set ahead of time, placing more stress on the traveler. Financial tools available in the foreign exchange market, if used strategically, may provide a reliable method to budgeting travel abroad as accurately as possible. There are many individuals, students especially, that plan on traveling or studying abroad yet are on tight budgets. Having a reliable budgeting tool that works to hedge against risk can make a difference in their ability to travel abroad

Budjetointityövälineen luonti säätiön omistamalle Majatalolle

Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli luoda budjetointityöväline toimeksiantajan espanjalaisen Majatalon taloudenpidon avuksi. Majatalon toimintaa oltiin elvyttämässä ja taloudenpito vei aikaa, eikä sen tueksi ollut toimivaa järjestelmää. Työvälineen tarkoituksena oli auttaa Majatalon pitäjiä itsenäisesti seuraamaan omaa talouttaan ja samalla myös suunnittelemaan tulevaa. Vaatimuksina Excel-ohjelmalla tehtävälle budjetointityövälineelle olivat yksinkertaisuus, selkeys ja helppokäyttöisyys. Opinnäytetyön teoriaosassa käsitellään budjetointia organisaation taloudellisen suunnittelun ja seurannan välineenä. Budjetointi voidaan tehdä monella eri tavalla. Sen tekoon voi osallistua myös henkilöstö, jolloin budjettiin on helpompi sitoutua ja se motivoi. Budjetoinnin tärkein tehtävä on seuraavan vuoden suunnittelu. Budjetoinnilla on myös muita tehtäviä kuten toiminnan koordinointi. Budjetin avulla ohjataan toimintaa vertailemalla toteutumia ja tavoitteita ja toteuttamalla korjaavia toimenpiteitä nopeasti. Budjetointia on kritisoitu paljon. Monet suuret organisaatiot ovat jopa luopuneet budjetoinnista koettuaan sen raskaaksi sekä hyödyttömäksi ja luoneet omat tapansa talouden suunnitteluun ja seurantaan. Useiden organisaatioiden ensimmäinen budjetointityöväline luodaan taulukkolaskentasovelluksella. Opinnäytteen empiirisessä osassa budjetointityöväline toteutettiin Majatalon toivomusten perusteella ja toimeksiantaja pääsi myös vaikuttamaan toteutustapaan paljon. Työväline koostuu kahdesta Excel-tiedostosta, joista toisessa on tulosbudjetti ja toisessa tulosbudjetin seuranta. Tulosbudjettiin arvioidaan tulevan vuoden tulot sekä menot. Tulosbudjetin seurantaan on linkitetty budjetoidut luvut tulosbudjetista ja käyttäjä syöttää seurantaan kuukausitasolla toteutuneet luvut. Tulosbudjetin seuranta kokoaa koko vuoden budjetoidut sekä toteutuneet luvut yhteen, jolloin nähdään helposti miten koko vuosi on mennyt suhteessa budjetoituihin lukuihin. Budjetoinnista saadaan suurin hyöty pohtimalla toiminnan tavoitteita syvällisesti budjettia luotaessa. Tärkeää on myös budjettiseuranta. Seuraamalla budjettia tiedetään ollaanko tavoitteeseen pääsemässä ja mitä muutoksia toiminnassa tulee tehdä, jotta budjetoituihin lukuihin päästään. Toimeksiantajalle luotu budjetointityöväline pystyttiin pitämään riittävän yksinkertaisena, ja työväline oli käyttökokeilun mukaan selkeä ja helppokäyttöinen. Työvälineen tulojen ja menojen seurantaa tullaan käyttämään varmasti, mutta työvälineen käyttö taloudenpidon suunnittelun välineenä voi jäädä vähälle. Tästä syystä onkin tärkeää, että työvälineen käyttäjä ymmärtää suunnittelun hyödyt.The goal of this thesis was to create a budgeting tool for a guest house situated in Spain. The financial management in the guest house wasn’t efficient and it took a lot of time. There wasn’t a working system for the management of finances. The purpose for the budgeting tool was to help the guest house keepers independently plan and monitor their finances. The demands for the budgeting tool were to create a simple Excel-program, easy to use and understand. In the theory section of this thesis budgeting is discussed as a tool of financial planning and monitoring. Budgeting can be made in many ways. When the staff participate in budgeting, it is easier to commit to the budget and it also motivates better. The most important task of budgeting is to make a financial plan for the next year. There are also many other tasks such as coor-dinating operations. It is easy to guide operations with the help of budget by comparing actual performance with objectives and make corrective actions fast. There is a lot of criticism for budgeting. Various big organizations have even given up budgeting after they have felt it is useless and a heavy system. Those organizations have created their own ways to plan and observe their finances. The spreadsheet program is the first budgeting tool for many organizations. The budgeting tool was created according to the wishes of the guest house keepers on the empirical section of the thesis. The tool consists of two Excel-files. The first file contains a budgeted income statement and the other a budget follow-up. The budget contains estimated income and expenses for the forthcoming year. The figures in the budget file are linked to the budget follow-up file. The user has to feed actual numbers to the follow up on a monthly basis. The budgeted and actual figures are compiled to the budget follow-up sheet. Then it is easy to see how the year has gone compared to the budgeted figures.The greatest benefit from budgeting is gained by considering goals for operations when making the budget. The follow up is also important. By following the budget it is easy to see if the organization is reaching its goals and what corrections on the operation have to be made to reach those goals. It was possible to keep the budgeting tool made for the guest house simple and in a trial run the tool was said to be easy to use. The tool will be used to monitor income and expenses, but the tool for planning finances might not be used. For this reason it is important that the user understands the benefits of planning

Farm Auditing for Sustainability

Policy makers have now established sustainability as the new aim for UK farming. The development of the Farm Audit for Sustainability involved identifying the objectives of sustainable farming, based on the Principles of organic farming as set out by the International Federation of Organic Farming Movements (IFOAM) and establishment of indicators to assess the effectiveness of individual farms in meeting these objectives. On-farm use of the Farm Audit demonstrated that the tool was able to provide a comprehensive assessment of sustainability of the farming system and that it is an information and advisory tool which is potentially useful in benchmarking and development of the farming operation

Rational Capital Budgeting in an Irrational World

This paper addresses the following basic capital budgeting question: Suppose that cross-sectional differences in stock returns can be predicted based on variables other than beta (e.g., book-to- market), and that this predictability reflects market irrationality rather than compensation for fundamental risk. In this setting, how should companies determine hurdle rates? I show how factors such as managerial time horizons and financial constraints affect the optimal hurdle rate. Under some circumstances, beta can be useful as a capital budgeting tool, even if it is of no use in predicting stock returns.

Productizing Performance Measurement System for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

This study strives to formulate a performance measurement system (PMS) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to offer guidelines for its productization. To achieve that end, a set of requirements for successful PMS for SMEs are derived from the literature, confirmed empirically and summarized into a outlining of a product. Additionally, this study provides a roadmap to productizing this performance measurement system. The evidence from previous literature suggests that a successful PMS for SMEs has following qualities: it is able to assist organization in strategy work, it provides a balanced view of the organization, it enables recognizing and incorporates causal relationships between results and determinants, is dynamically adaptable, clear and simple to operate, accounts for stakeholder perspective and is developed with and for its users. To productize such a system successfully one has to recognize a need for such a service, outline the service, pilot it, concretize it and finally collect feedback and develop it further. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study for a small Finnish company providing financial administration services. The empirical material for the study consisted of nine interviews within the case company and with the representatives of their clients. The data from the interviews was analyzed with thematic coding and complemented with financial statements and other readily available material. Based on the empirical and theoretical research, it is suggested that small and medium-sized enterprises base their performance measurement in proper budgeting tool. It can be stated that budgeting, when implemented properly, meets the qualities of successful performance measurement system for SMEs and can be employed to achieve multiple ends. Budgeting tool can be complemented with proper key performance indicators, forecasting tools and strategy development consultation to achieve even more comprehensive performance measurement

The Need for Improved Disclosures for General Purpose Reloadable Prepaid Cards

The Pew Charitable Trusts introduced a model disclosure box today for general purpose reloadable prepaid cards that provides information on terms and conditions in a concise and easy-to-read way to make it easier for consumers to compare the cards and avoid unexpected fees

Business Innovation: The Online Cookbook

There is a common trend across most of the world we live in today of innovation and adaptation. Recently a lot of this change had come from the technological front, and this is no different for the largest brick and mortar retailer in the United States, Walmart. Walmart has put a substantial amount of focus on keeping up with the ever changing digital commerce business environment. Walmart projects that out of the 324 million people that live across the country 140 million of them visit their store either in person or through their website each week. This traffic brings in about $5.4 billion dollars per week and is second only to the online shopping platform Amazon

M&m's: An error budget and performance simulator code for polarimetric systems

Although different approaches to model a polarimeter's accuracy have been described before, a complete error budgeting tool for polarimetric systems has not been yet developed. Based on the framework introduced by Keller & Snik, in 2009, we have developed the M&m's code as a first attempt to obtain a generic tool to model the performance and accuracy of a given polarimeter, including all the potential error contributions and their dependencies on physical parameters. The main goal of the code is to provide insight on the combined influence of many polarization errors on the accuracy of any polarimetric instrument. In this work we present the mathematics and physics based on which the code is developed as well as its general structure and operational scheme. Discussion of the advantages of the M&m's approach to error budgeting and polarimetric performance simulation is carried out and a brief outlook of further development of the code is also given.Comment: Publ. date: 09/201

Comparing Profitability and Cash Flows of Agroforestry and Agriculture on Australian Farms

This paper is a summary of a project that compared the relative profitability of existing, emerging and prospective agroforestry systems with profitability of conventional agricultural land uses in the cropping zones of Western Australia and New South Wales. The project explored the economic boundary conditions under which several promising agroforestry systems may be viable in the lower rainfall zones. Partial budgeting and discounted cash flow techniques were used to conduct the comparative analysis of alternative land use scenarios. The profitability, cash flows and debt associated with each of the scenario are reported. The analysis underpinning this research provides estimates of the economic value of the temporal and spatial interaction effects of trees on agricultural crops and pastures.Farm Management,