A budget (from old French bougette, purse) is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending.

A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods. In other terms, a budget is an organizational plan stated in monetary terms.

In summary, the purpose of budgeting is to:

Budget helps to aid the planning of actual operations by forcing managers to consider how the conditions might change and what steps should be taken now and by encouraging managers to consider problems before they arise. It also helps co-ordinate the activities of the organization by compelling managers to examine relationships between their own operation and those of other departments. Other essentials of budget include:

The process of calculating the costs of starting a small business begins with a list of all necessary purchases including tangible assets (for example, equipment, inventory) and services (for example, remodeling, insurance), working capital, sources and collateral. The budget should contain a narrative explaining how you decided on the amount of this reserve and a description of the expected financial results of business activities. The assets should be valued with each and every cost. All other expenses are like labour factory overhead all freshmen expenses are also included into business budgeting.

Pravin Jamnadas Gordhan (born 12 April 1949 in Durban) is a South African politician, serving as Minister of Finance since May 2009. He was previously the Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service from 1999 to 2009. From 1991 and 1994, he chaired the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. He was also co-chairman of the Transitional Executive Council, which oversaw the transition to the first democratically elected government.^{[citation needed]}

As a member of parliament from 1994 to 1998, Gordhan chaired the parliamentary committee that focused on the implementation of the new Constitution and the transformation of local government in the post-apartheid. Gordhan was re-elected for the fourth time as Council Chairman of the World Customs Organization in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

On 10 May 2009, President Jacob Zuma appointed Gordhan as Minister of Finance, succeeding Trevor Manuel.

Gordhan was attacked^[why?] by the ANC Youth League following his 2010 budget speech, but he was defended by trade union COSATU, and by the ANC's national executive committee.