21/07/2026
Fixed Budget
A fixed budget is a budget produced for a single activity level. A fixed budget will remain the same no matter what the actual volume of sales or production turns out to be.
A fixed budget is produced at the start of an accounting period to provide information as to the aims and objectives that the organisation is working towards in that period.
Flexible Budget
A flexible budget is one which, by recognising cost behaviour patterns, is designed to change as volume of activity changes.
A flexible budget should represent what the costs and revenues were expected to be at different levels of production. Comparing a flexible budget with actual results provides management with more meaningful information.
For example, a fixed budget might be produced for making 10,000 units of a product, but if 30,000 units were actually produced it would not be useful comparing the cost of 30,000 units to a budget for 10,000 so a flexible budget would be recalculated for 30,000 units so this can be compared to the actual costs of producing 30,000 units to give a fairer comparison.