Final answer:
Budgets should reflect individual goals and be built on realistic assumptions; they are used not just by senior management but at all organizational levels and serve as important control tools to manage financial performance.
Step-by-step explanation:
When discussing budgets, it's essential to understand that they should indeed consider individual goals and objectives in order to align financial planning with personal or organizational aspirations. However, while preparing a budget, it is generally more prudent to build it on realistic or even conservative scenarios rather than only the most optimistic ones. This approach palliates the risk of underfunding. Budgets are not solely used by senior management; individuals, families, and managers at all levels of an organization use budgets for planning and decision-making purposes. Lastly, budgets are indeed leveraged as a control tool; they serve as a benchmark for measuring performance and can highlight variances that need addressing.