Sales budgeting serves a number of purposes that fall under the general heading of planning, coordination, and evaluation. First, a budget is the outcome from a plan of action. A sales plan establishes goals and objectives. A sales budget is the expression of how these objectives and goals are met. The budget establishes a standard of performance. A budget sets the benchmark that defines success. Sales budget also help to control and coordinate activity. A sales budget has impact on other aspects of a firm's operations. For a manufacturing organization, the sales budget must be coordinated with the production budget or a firm may face stock-outs or excess inventory. A sales budget serves as a tool to control operations. A firm may establish policies that dictate that a manager may not exceed an expense budget item without extraordinary approval. Finally, a sales budget is essential in the evaluation phase of a firm's operation. A budget serves as a benchmark or criteria that is used to evaluate sales performance. A manager who meets goals is usually considered successful and is recorded, rewarded accordingly. The budget is a tool to translate general plans into specific action-oriented goals and objectives. Now, budgets don't guarantee success, but they certainly help to avoid failure. When things don't go as planned, the budget is the tool that provides a mechanism for identifying and for focusing on departures from the plan. The budget provides the benchmarks against which to judge success or failure in reaching goals and facilitates timely corrective measures. Within most organizations, it becomes very common for managers to argue and to compete for allocations of limited resources, and the battlefield is usually the budget. Successful managers will learn to make a strong case for the resources needed by their units.