THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL PLANNING AND CONTROL ON PERFORMANCE OF SMEs IN AUSTRIALIA
Abstract
Although there has been some discussion in the academic literature on the relationship between planning and performance of small and medium enterprises(SMEs), no prior research has attempted to capture the control aspect of planning and its possible impact on performance. Furthermore, most of the studies on this aspect have been concentrating on long-range strategic planning with little attention being devoted to financial planning based on annual budgeting. Therefore, based on the results of a study involving a questionnaire survey of budgetting and budgetary control processes of 473 manufacturing SMEs in Australia, this paper attempts to provide an analysis of the impact of both financial planning and control of the sample firms on their performance. The results reveal that greater comprehensiveness in both financial plannig and control processes leads to higher sales performance of these firms.