In a company, all areas are important, since the business cannot be conceived in the absence of any of them. Broadly speaking, a normal cycle of any business is:
As we can see, the constant in any company will always be to sell. For this reason, sales a key area for any company, for they're the engine or the income generator that will later bring utilities -once we remove costs and expenses. It's true that we can't focus only on selling, we should mostly focus on generating profits, utilities, but if we don't have sales, we'll have no income and let alone, profits.
That's why it's a priority for every company to have a sales budget.
It's an estimate made based on:
There are companies whose sales remain constant throughout the year yet, there are others which must consider each season in order to estimate their sales budget. This depends on the company's line of business, since the sales of each line of business usually increase or decrease according to the seasons.
For example:
This budget must be estimated based on real numbers, taking into account the resources of the company and the real potential of the market. It shouldn't be made based on idealistic numbers.
Since it's an estimate only, it may not meet reality 100% yet, it's a great and rational starting point for the projection of your company's income, which will also help in estimating the projection of your profits. This makes it a great tool for decision making, such as: buying of inventories, future investments, company's growth, etc.