Financial management can be referred to as a branch of finance dealing with the managerial significance of the finance techniques.
Financial management is recognised as a distinct field of study at the turn of 19th century. Its evolution may be divided into three broad phases:
- The traditional phase
- The transitional phase
- The modern phase.
The traditional phase lasted for about four decades.
The transitional phase begins around the early forties and continues through the early fifties. Though the nature pf financial mgmt during this phase was similar to that of the traditional phase, greater emphasis was placed on the day to day problem faced by the finance managers in the area of funds analysis, planning, and control.
The modern phase begin in mid 50s and has witnessed an accelerated pace of development with the infusion of ideas from economic theories and applications of quantitative methods of analysis.
Joseph Massie (died 1784) was an 18th-century political economist who wrote about 15 pamphlets dealing with economic and financial questions.
“Financial Management is the Operational Activity of a business that is responsible for obtaining and effectively utilizing the funds necessary for efficient operation.”
Kuldeep Roy
“Business finance deals primarily with rising administering and disbursing funds by privately owned business units operating in non-financial fields of industry.”
Weston and Brigham
Professor Fred J Weston is a friendly and extremely intelligent professor. He’s a legend here at UCLA teaching here since 1949.
“Financial Management is an area of financial decision making, harmonizing individual motives and enterprise goals.”
J.F.Bradlery
“Financial management is the area of business management devoted to a judicious use of capital and a careful selection of sources of capital in order to enable a business firm to move in the direction of reaching its goals.”
K.D. Willson
“Financial management is the application of the planning and control function to the finance function.”
Howard & Opton
“Financial management may be defined as that area or set of administrative function in an organization which relate with arrangement of cash and credit so that organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible .“
H.G Gathman & H.E Dougall
Business finance can be broadly defined as “the activity concerned with planning, raising, controlling and administering of funds and in the business.”
Kepher Petra; Kisii University
Financial management is a body of business concerned with the efficient and effective use of either equity capital, borrowed cash or any other business funds as well as taking the right decision for profit maximization and value addition of an entity.
