Decision Making in Cloud Computing Environments †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Decision Making in Cloud Computing Environments. Answer: Introduction In the process of accounting, preparation of Budget is considered as one of the major activities. A budget refers to a quantitative plan that the organizational financial managers use for the decision-making process of future business activities (Otley, David and Kenneth). Thus, it can be said that the preparation of budget includes different other accenting and financial activities. The major financial operations that are included in the budget are the estimation of future sales of the companies, the estimation of future cash inflows and outflows of the companies, different kinds of business disbursements and others. All these processes help in the preparation of financial budgets (Hofstede and Geert). Now, it needs to be mentioned that every budgets have some major features or characteristics that are crucial and they need to be mentioned in the appropriate way. The main aim of this report is to discuss various features and characteristics of a particular budget. For this report, t he 2016/17 annual budget of the City Council of City of Melville, Australia is taken into consideration. Different part of the report analyzes and evaluates the features of the Budget of City of Melville. From the above discussion, it can be understood that each budget has some major features and characteristics. In addition, at the time of analyzing and evaluating the budgets, some of the key factors need to be determined; they are purpose of the budgeting system that is whether it is for long-term or short-term, type of the particular budget and the detailed planning process for the budget. All these aspects make the evaluation of the features of budgets easier. There is no exception of these facts in case of the budget of City of Melville. Based on the observation of the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville, it can be seen that there are four major parts of their budget; they are Certification of the Budget, Overview of the Budget, Statutory Budget and Fees Charges of the Budget ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). These particular aspects can be considered as one of the features of the budget of City of Melville. It implies that City of Melville has segmented their budget in these above-ment ioned segments in order to make them easy understandable for the users of this budget. All these above-mentioned aspects of the budget of City of Melville are discussed below: Certification of Budget One of the major features of the budget of City of Melville is that it includes the certification of their 2016/17 budget. The major feature of this segment is that it includes some of the crucial information regarding improved and unimproved residential lands, commercial and industrial lands, different types of network charges along with service charges, the information about rating concessions, information regarding refuse charges, administration and interest charge for rates and service charges and others. In case of improved residential lands, it can be seen that 6.255597 cents dollar of the gross rental value is applicable for each improved residential property. In case of the unimproved residential land, the amount is 7.046511 cents in dollar. For the project of South Melville Underground Power Scheme, each scheme needs to be charged $326.50 as network service charge. As per the budget, the standard and modified connection fees are $1590 and $795 respectively ("Budget 2016-2017 " 2017). In case of the rating concessions as per the budget, it can be seen that City of Melville grants concessions applicable for applicable zones. It can be noticed that some of the zones even get 100% concession. The inclusion of refuse chares is considered as another feature of the budget of City of Melville. As per the regulations of the budget of City of Melville, the owners of the properties have been allowed to pay the administrative and interest charges for rates and service on their properties on the installment basis. It needs to be mentioned that the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville has been developed as per Section 6.13 of the Local Government Act ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). Thus, it can be seen that the above mentioned factors are some of the major features of the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville as they are the crucial factors for the preparation of budget of City of Melville (Otley, David and Kenneth). Overview of Budget Providing the overview of the budget can be considered as another major feature of the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville. The main motive behind the preparation of the budget overview is to help the uses of this budget understanding the various components of budget. It can be seen that most of the people do not have enough time to observe or study the whole budget. However, with the help of budget overview, they can have sufficient knowledge about the whole budget. This is the main importance of the overview of the budget. In this regard, it needs to be mentioned that the overview of the annual budget has been prepared as per the Local Government Act and the Financial Management Regulations. It needs to be mentioned that there are some major subsections in the overview of the budget in order to make the budget easily understandable for the users. They are short details about City of Melville, overview of the financial position of the city, source of the funds, the places where the f unds have been spent, details about general purpose findings, details about operational incomes and expenditures, summary of key charges and levies, summary regarding the capital works and others. It needs to be mentioned that the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville has been made as a part of the Long Term Financial Plan of the city. In addition, it needs to be mentioned that the respected authority has developed the budget of City of Melville in order to fulfill the needs of city as well as its citizens. It can be seen from the overview of the budget that there was a rise in 2.45% in dollars that is less than the recent budget. In addition, the budget helps in the long-term decision making process of the company. A crucial feature of this budget is that it helps to evaluate the impact of rising costs on the residents of City of Melville. The Chief Executive Officer and the Director Corporate Services have approved the overview of budget. Statutory Budget The most important feature of the 2016/17 budget of City of Melville is the development of Statutory Budget. This is the most important segment of the budget of City of Melville as it contains detailed information about the budget of City of Melville for 2016/17. As per the budget of 2016/17 and 2015/16 of City of Melville, it can be seen that there has been an increase in the revenue of City of Melville as the revenue increased from $110,224,037 to $116,106,411. As per the forecast, the major heads of revenue are rates, grants and contributions, fees and charges, service charges, investment earnings and other revenues. On the other hand, the major heads of the expenses of City of Melville are cost of the employees, materials and contracts, utility charges, insurance charges, depreciation, interest expenses and other expenses. As per the budget of 2016/17 of City of Melville, it can be seen that there has been an increase in total comprehensive income of City of Melville that is from $10,912,690 to $18,257,720. From the budgeted cash flow statement of City of Melville for 2016/17, there has been an increase in the cash inflow from operating activities. The same trend can be seen in case of cash and cash equivalent as it has also increased in 2016/17 from 2015/16. Another major feature of the budget of City of Melville is the adoption of the major accounting policies (Arnaboldi et al.). It needs to be mentioned that the budget of City of Melville has been prepared based on the policies and standards of Australian Accounting Standards, Australian Accounting Interpretations, Australian Accounting Standard Board, Local Government Act 1965 and other regulations ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). Another major feature of this budget is that all the details of the fund resources that the government controls. All the figures have been rounded off to the nearest dollars, but exception can be seen in case of the dollar rates. In this particular budget, GST has been imposed in all the figures of revenues, expenses and assets and all the amount of GST is recoverable as per the regulations of Australian Taxation Office (Anderson et al.). In case of the fixed assets of City of Melville, the values are taken on the basis of fair value. Moreover, depreciation has been charged on the non-current assets having a limited life time and this has been done separately and systematically. As per the regulations of the budget of City of Melville, there is not any rule of capitalization of expense under $5000. Another major feature is the steps in fair value. First step includes the measurement processes based on quote prices. Second step includes measurement based on input prices. Third step includes measurements based on unobservable inputs. The employees of City of Melville are entitled to get short-term employee benefits along with the long-term employee benefits. As per the above discussion, these are the major features of the statutory budget of City of Melville for the year 2016/17 (Van Dooren et al.). Three Surprising Items of the Budget The first surprising items in 2016/17 budget of City of Melville is that there is not any forecast for any cash inflow or outflow from the financial activities of City of Melville. It can be seen that there are two items in the financing activities in the cash flow of City of Melville; they are proceeds from self supporting loans and repayment of debentures. It is an interesting fact that there is mention about the repayment of debentures, but there is not anything mentioned about the issues of debentures. However, the amount is same in case of the proceeds from self supporting loans. Thus, interestingly, it can be said that the issue of debentures is named as proceeds from self supporting loans. This is an interesting item in the budget of City of Melville for 2016/17 ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). The second surprising factor in the budget of City of Melville for 2016/17 is the preparation of the citys Comprehensive Income Statement on the basis of both by nature or type and by program. This particular item implies the objective of City of Melville to make the budget more acceptable and understandable for the users. It needs to be mentioned that this division will make the users able to understand the same income statement from different point of views. It can be observed that the total amount of each heads is same. Thus, it can be considered as an interesting item in the budget of City of Melville ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). The third interesting item is the budget of City of Melville regarding the purchase of Fleet assets. It can be seen that City of Melville has developed a detailed budget about the purchase of Fleet vehicle for the year 2016/17. It includes light vehicles, heavy vehicles, light plants and heavy plants. This is a very interesting item as it takes large efforts for City of Melville to prepare this budget of fleet ("Budget 2016-2017" 2017). Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be seen that the 2016/17 Annual Budget of City of Melville has many crucial features. It can be observed that the division of the whole budget into four major segments can be considered as the major feature of the budget of City of Melville. In addition, it has been seen that at the time of developing the budget, City of Melville has complied with some of the major policies and standards of Australian Accounting Standards, Local Government Act and others. There can be considered as the major features of City of Melville. As per the discussion, it can be seen that there are three interesting items in the budget of City of Melville; they are the naming of issuance of debentures as proceeds from self supporting loans; preparation of comprehensive income statements bases on types and programs; and the preparation of detailed budget for fleet vehicles of City of Melville. References "Budget 2016-2017". 2017.Melvillecity.Com.Au. https://www.melvillecity.com.au/newproxy/service/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/6dd199e2-defb-4de4-bfef-784be684bf61/Budget%20Document%202016-2017/content/Budget%20Document%202016-2017?alf_ticket=TICKET_318aa105d4d35d43d15e3d452b7c0dfcb91c6f8d. Anderson, David R., Dennis J. Sweeney, Thomas A. Williams, Jeffrey D. Camm, and James J. Cochran.An introduction to management science: quantitative approaches to decision making. Cengage learning, 2015. Arnaboldi, Michela, Irvine Lapsley, and Ileana Steccolini. 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