For most people budget tracking is still a manual process being conducted on pieces

of paper. Copybooks and notebooks are used for this purpose where the weekly or
monthly expenses are written as per the willingness of the person. At the end of
the month, the total for the income/expenses made is then calculated so that
comparison can be made against previous months.

Income management is also done which consumes more pages of the

copybook.
The problems identified with the actual system being used by most people are
as follows:
• Much detail cannot be kept since there is much rewrite to be done which
makes the task boring.
• Involves much paperwork which,

1. can be easily lost or stolen,

2. may become dirty or get damaged thus causing lost of
information,
3. may lead to clarity problems due to handwriting problems.

• Searching and referencing is difficult and time consuming.

• Analysis and comparison of data becomes difficult.
• Reports generation is a tedious process.
• The work being done is not accurate.

These local based budget tracking software now seem to be quite limiting
because of the mobility of people. Today, due to the massive use of the internet,
people want to be able to access every service they need from anywhere. Online
applications can also be accessed by browsers in mobile phones which are
becoming very effective for use in today’s world. Hence, web based
budget tracking applications are preferred to the local based budget tracking
applications.

The process that is being implemented/followed by different institutions

or organisations is only the hand written which may be several factors as like lack
of computer knowledge , lack of faith in data protection , fear of data theft , fear
of hacking or there may be many other reasons which did not encourage them in
having a automated version for their budget management.These may be few
drawbacks with the automated version of budget tracking but still there are many
more advantages in having the automated version.

The general hand written policy is where an institution appoints a seperate

team or the financial department for the institution who looks after the complete
budget management of the institution.The only aim of this team is to keep the
budget of that institution always in control.They should not go for those extra
expenditure which isn’t required for the institution.All this management of budget
is done manually where everything is recoreded or noted into a seperate logbook
that is maintained especially for this budget management.
 This manual process of budget management includes several steps as :
i. The institution would appoint a seperate team of members for this budget
management.
ii. This team maintains a seperate log sheet called Balance Sheet for each and
every department where all the transactions performed by the specified
department are recorded.
iii. There will be a discussion between the heads of department and the main admin
at the beginning of the financial year regarding the budget distribution .
iv. Each and every department would be assigned with a specific head who will be
responsible for the budget management of that department.
v. Basing on the requirement of the budget the head proposes a specific amount to
the principal that would be enough for the management of all other sub
departments included in the department.
vi. The principal before accepting the proposed budget by the specific head, will
have a clean check regarding the proposal and after consulting with the financial
department then he would make a decision of either accepting it or asking the
respective head to modify the proposal.
vii. After his approval the finance department would sanction budget to the respeced
department which would be assigned to the head of the department.
viii. Basing on that budget that is assigned to different sub deparments in the
department , the head would make a proposal for things related to that sub
department only after checking the available amount in that sub department.
ix. This would be recorded as requested amount in the balance sheet and if the
amount was sanctioned to him then it would be modified as sanctioned amuont.
x. This balance sheet includes sanctioned amount , utilised amount , remaining
balance of that sub department.
xi. All the charges that is bill amount , shipping charges , labour expenses etc are
also mentioned in the balance sheet.Each head will be given a card where all the
miscellaneous charges are written and are later included into the balanse sheet.
xii. This process is done for all the transcations for all the departments and at the end
of the financial year all these were calculated finding the budget utilised by every
department.
xiii. All these balance sheets of different departments are brought together and are
maintained under a single log sheet which is called the Balance Sheet for Central
level
Though there are several disadvantages in this hand written log sheet as :

I. Much detail cannot be kept since there is much rewrite to be done which makes
the task
II. boring.
III. Involves much paperwork which:
IV. occupy lots of space,
V. can be easily lost or stolen,
VI. may become dirty or get damaged thus causing lost of information,
VII. may lead to clarity problems due to handwriting problems.
VIII. Searching and referencing is difficult and time consuming.
IX. Analysis and comparison of data becomes difficult.
X. Reports generation is a tedious process.
XI. The work being done is not accurate.

• Much detail cannot be kept since there is much rewrite to be done which
makes the task boring.
• Involves much paperwork which,
a) can be easily lost or stolen,
b) may become dirty or get damaged thus causing lost of
information,
c) may lead to clarity problems due to handwriting problems.

• Searching and referencing is difficult and time consuming.

• Analysis and comparison of data becomes difficult.
• Reports generation is a tedious process.
• The work being done is not accurate.

Even though there are several disadvantages that are included in this hand written log
sheet even today there are many organisations do follow this method where their budget
transcations or the budget amount may not be high

This online budget tracker decreases the human effort there by decreasing the amount
of error occurence and even though there are errors the rectification and clearance
would be easy when compared to manual correction.This is mainly useful to those
institutions or organisations where the budget transactions , budget amount are so high
that manual involvement will not be useful and not recommended at all .