Financial Management & Budgeting Flashcards
7 cards from real CSA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Financial Management & Budgeting flashcards as text
A sysadmin discovers that a software license is being renewed automatically for 200 seats, but only 80 are actively used. What financial practice would have prevented this waste?
Answer: Software Asset Management (SAM)
Software Asset Management (SAM) tracks license usage and entitlements to prevent over-purchasing and reduce waste.
Which document formally requests approval to spend money on a specific IT project or purchase?
Answer: Business Case / Capital Expenditure Request
A business case or CapEx request presents the justification, costs, and expected benefits to gain financial approval for a project.
Your organization's fiscal year ends December 31. You need a new storage array but budget is nearly exhausted. The vendor offers delivery in January. What budget concept is most relevant?
Answer: Accrual cutoff
The accrual cutoff determines which fiscal period an expense belongs to; delivery in January means the expense hits next year's budget.
IT leadership presents three cloud pricing options: reserved instances, on-demand, and spot instances. Which is typically most cost-effective for predictable, steady-state workloads?
Answer: Reserved instances
Reserved instances offer significant discounts (up to 72%) over on-demand pricing in exchange for a 1- or 3-year commitment, ideal for steady workloads.
A department head asks why their business unit is being billed for IT services they didn't explicitly request. The IT director explains this is a 'showback' model. What distinguishes showback from chargeback?
Answer: Showback only reports allocated costs for visibility without actual fund transfers
Showback reports cost allocations to business units for awareness, while chargeback actually transfers the funds from their budgets.
When preparing an IT budget for the next fiscal year, which expenditure type would a sysadmin classify as OpEx?
Answer: Monthly cloud subscription fees for IaaS
Monthly subscription fees are ongoing operational expenses (OpEx), not capital investments in long-lived assets.
A cost-benefit analysis for a new monitoring tool shows cumulative benefits exceed costs after 18 months. What does this represent?
Answer: The break-even point / payback period
The point at which cumulative benefits equal total costs is the break-even point, equivalent to the payback period for the investment.