GSB003_Assessment 2_Guide PAGE 1 MANAGING FINANCIAL RESOURCES Assessment Task 2: Additional Guidance This document provides additional guidance to assist students as you undertake MFR Assessment Task...

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GSB003_Assessment 2_Guide PAGE 1 MANAGING FINANCIAL RESOURCES Assessment Task 2: Additional Guidance This document provides additional guidance to assist students as you undertake MFR Assessment Task 2. Note that the requirements for Assessment Task 2 are set out in the Unit Guide, and the information in this document is intended to be supplementary to that. Assessment Purpose The underlying learning objectives that we are seeking students to demonstrate are that you: • Have knowledge of good practice budget principles and can apply these principles within a work context to evaluate a chosen budget process, • Understand key costs/revenues and be able to interpret how they ‘behave’ within a work context, • Are able to draw on the budget process evaluation and the analysis of key costs/revenues to develop and propose recommendations for improvement, Selecting a budget process Students may choose any suitable budget for analysis. This could include, as examples, a sales budget for a business unit, a division, a State or a region. It could be a an expense budget or a profit & loss budget for a business unit, a division/department a State or a region. It could be a Project budget or a BAU (Business as usual) budget. It makes sense to choose a budget for which you have involvement and are able to access information. It may be a budget for which you are accountable or may be a budget that you provide input to or a budget into which your cost is allocated. If you don’t have accountability for a budget, it may make sense to select a budget that you may have involvement with in the future. It is recommended that you clearly identify the chosen budget and its scope and context within the organisation. ThiThe s would be well placed in the Introduction section of your report. The context of the budget has an important influence on your evaluation of the budget process. Research Your research will typically involve two aspects: 1) Academic research that is required in order to become informed about good practice budgeting principles and costing concepts. It may also include researching potential impacts to budgeting or costings that are emerging from the use of data analytics. This research will build intellectual rigour and mastery of business and management disciplines (graduate attribute 1 and 5). GSB003_Assessment 2_Guide PAGE 2 2) Workplace research, including examining workplace documents and conducting interviews with stakeholders associated with the budget. This will build effective communication and interpersonal skills (graduate attribute 4). Generally, it follows that more thorough research leads to stronger analysis, stronger arguments and more robust and well supported recommendations. Analysis Analysis involves drawing meaning from the results and goes beyond providing a description of what the budget process is and what the key costs/revenues are. Thus analysis should compare the workplace budget process against good practice principles and within the context of the organisation so as to identify gaps and areas for improvement. Consider what is working well and what could be improved. Some further tips in relation to analysis: • We do not need to see the actual budget or budget “numbers”. You do NOT need to provide the actual budget figures or to have access to the budget figures. The assessment relates to an evaluation of the budget process as an mechanism for managing financial resources, and also on the costing structure (ie knowing what the main cost elements are within the budget). It is not an evaluation of whether the budget was met or not, or whether the budget was underspent or overspent (although that may be considered within the evaluation). Having access to the actual budget may assist, but is not essential to being able to respond to this assessment. • In your assessment, we would expect you to demonstrate that you have knowledge of what constitutes good practice budgeting (both preparation and monitoring) and are able to apply this in identifying any gaps in your chosen budget process • We expect that have developed an understanding of the key costs (and or revenues) and also the factors that drive (influence) those. Developing academic argument Arguments are essentially the key points that you wish to make. They reflect key themes identified in the research and associated analysis. We expect that your paper is structured / organised along these key themes. Themes usually only emerge after you have done some initial research. Thus, after doing research, stop and reflect on what you have found. Identify the important themes/issues that are apparent. These become your arguments. Build your paper around these arguments. This may then require further research as you dig deeper to provide information and analysis to support these arguments. Arguments lead to and support conclusions and or recommendations. Arguments must be supported by evidence (theory plus findings). Evidence is provided by theory content (supported by credible references) and by findings (supported by workplace research). The ability to refine all your findings and to distil them into clear arguments is an important written communication skill. This will assist you in being able to convey the most important imformation and stay within word count. GSB003_Assessment 2_Guide PAGE 3 Recommendations This is an important section of this assessment and should be considered throughout your research and analysis. The assessment speccifically requires a critique and recommendations to follow from the critique. Note that recommendations must be informed judgements, decisions or insights reached by reasoning and supported by evidence. They should emerge from the key arguments and analysis. Every recommendation must be clearly traceable to the supporting arguments and its associated evidence. Presentation, format and style This assessment is required to be submitted in a Report format. Please ensure you are confident on what a Report entails - and its major sections. Refer to the Communication Skills Handbook and Academic skills materials for information. Note that a Report format is not just a case of inserting report headings. The content under each heading must provide the content required of that section. As examples, the Executive Summary is NOT an introduction, nor a methodology section. Similarly, the Introduction section should provide an introduction to the report, including purpose, scope and any limitations. The style in a report is objective and neutral. Avoid emotive language and bias and write in third person language. A report is not a learning journal – it is focused on what you have found and explains those results – it does not explain the process you followed or your ‘learning journey’. It must lead to conclusions. Cover sheets are not required. For further information, please speak with your facilitator.