Which description matches a line item budget?

• A. Allocates specific amounts of money to each expenditure item listed in the budget
• B. Describes total planned expenditures without line details
• C. Focuses on capital projects across multiple years
• D. Lacks itemized detail

Answer: (A)

A line-item budget assigns a specific dollar amount to each expenditure item listed, creating a detailed, itemized plan. This structure shows exactly how much money is set aside for every category—such as salaries, equipment, fuel, and training—and makes it easy to monitor performance by comparing actual costs to those fixed amounts. That level of detail is what defines a line-item budget.

If a budget describes total planned expenditures without breaking them down into individual items, it lacks the per-item allocations that define line-item budgeting. Conversely, budgets that focus on capital projects across multiple years describe a capital or multi-year project budget rather than the granular, line-by-line detail. A budget without itemized detail simply doesn’t provide the individual allocations that characterize line-item budgeting.