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Techniques of cost accounting
Advantages and disadvantages of cost accounting
Budgeting as a tool to control and manage operations
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The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data …show more content…
In its current practice, the roles and functions of cost accounting includes additional functions. More specifically, it can be described as more than an inventory tracking system. This is because cost accounting entails defining the charges of activities and goods (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Because of its many roles and functions, this accounting method has been of great help to growth and expansion of business planning and management. Again, the reports offer assistance in the planning and growth projections for different business functions and units within the organization. The information cost accountants offer different uses, some of which aid in the controllership function, as well as the industrial …show more content…
As such, there is material cost regulator, manufacturing control, labor cost regulator, excellence control and so on. Conversely, control over the price is implemented through the methods of financial control and typical costing (Meigs, 1998). The control methods aid the management in understanding the operating competence of a firm. Cost accounting also determines the selling price. The intention of all business firms is minimizing costs and maximizing profits. The costs incurred in producing goods and services may be reduced through incorporating alternate but cheaper resources of
Management accounting in organisation is very important for decision-making and to make the business more efficient and therefore increasing its profits. Is the process of preparing accounts that can help managers to make day-to-day and short-term decisions, by providing them with accurate and timely key financial and statistical information...
Even though a myriad of tools and techniques learnt in the Strategic Cost Management and Strategic Business Analysis courses are not fully exploited in this essay, it is generally recognised that those techniques are useful for a corporate to formulate strategy, do strategic planning, control costing and quality, as well as eventually elevate its values, regardless the nature and size of organizations.
The Statement of financial position is a very useful tool full of information showing the position of an entity. However within this sheet of information lies a lot of limitations and problems. This essay will pinpoint some of the limitations and problems within the balance sheet. These limitations include how the balance sheet does not reflect the true financial position of a business, it does not reflect assets that can’t be measured monetarily and it also has a huge amount of estimated values and not actual verified values so this causes some controversy within the entity and its true position on the market. As well as the problems within the balance sheet there also lies a lot of problems with what’s left out of the balance sheet.
The nature of business has changed and evaluation. ‘New techniques have been developed and existing one has adapted to try to ensure that management accounting retains its relevance’ (Atrill, P. el at 2013, pg. 12). Then, what is management accounting? ‘The application of professional skills in the preparation and presentation of accounting information in such a way as to assist management in the formulation of policies and in the planning and control of the operations of the undertaking’ (Tyagi, C. el at 2003, pg.12). The management accounting is very significant thing in the operation which this might consider as tools that allows administrators to manage their enterprise, make internal stakeholder understand more and cooperate
"College Accounting Coach." Process Costing-Definitions And Features(Part1) « Process Costing « Cost Accounting «. Feb. 2007. Web
The contained paper has been prepared with objectives of elaborating over the three different costing methods namely, Absorption/Full Costing, Variable/Marginal Costing, and Activity Based accounting. The first segment of the report seeks to define and illustrate the costing methods based on the personal understanding of the writer gained through the class room and the academic readings. Part two of the report takes a form of short essay, written critically to evaluate the application of standard costing and variance analysis to any size of business, and concludes with a verdict that whether or not standard costing and variance analysis is applicable to each business with consideration of its costs and benefits of the system.
Management accounting plays a crucial role in manufacturing competitiveness by supplying relevant information which guides and facilitates management planning and control, decision making, and performance evaluation (Amenkhienan. and Green, 1990). Until recently, management accounting has been heavily criticized for failing to provide timely and accurate information, and for not keeping pace with the new manufacturing environment and technologies (Johnson and Kaplan, 1988). Other criticisms suggest that management accounting reports are of little help to operating managers and that the system fails to provide accurate product costs.
Horngren, C., Datar, S., Rajan, M. (2012). Cost Accounting: A managerial emphasis (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Subsequent to obtaining the accounting information, managerial accountants will then proceed to use it to plan, evaluate the company performance and also control the business operations. With regards to planning, the managers are required to make decisions concerning the kind of product to introduce into the market, when to introduce the product and where the production should take place. In performance evaluation, individual product lin...
It is recognised that appropriate cost accounting information is important for successful management of an industry whether it is large or small (European Commission-Enterp...
2. The financial accounting system focuses on outputs for external users when cost accounting focuses on internal outputs to meet the company’s
Businesses operate for the wealth of shareholders. Whether it provides goods or services, the aim is to make a profit by adding value. Nowadays these processes are closely monitored and controlled by the management accountants to ensure the highest return possible. Nevertheless, traditional budgeting and costing techniques are sufficient, but as the business environment changes, the demand for management accountant’s role become contentious.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that is designed to provide managers with cost information for strategic and other decisions that potentially affect capacity and therefore “fixed” as well as variable costs. Activity-based costing is mostly used for internal decision making and managing activities while traditional costing method is used to provide data for external financial reports. Most organization uses activity-based costing as an addition system for using traditional absorption costing as sometimes the traditional cost system misleads the product’s profitability. In a company, there are many products on sale, if one product is sold at a high price with low product margin and a product with high product margin at a low price, it may result in a loss. In addition, due to the reason that cost drivers and enterprises business may change, activity-based costing analysis also needs to be revised periodically. This amendment should be prompted to change pricing, product, customer focus and market share strategy to improve corporate profitability.
Managerial accounting has historical antecedents that stretch back to the beginning of the 1900s. Whether it was called cost accounting, or industrial accounting, or administrative accounting it is certain that concerns regarding production cost calculation, expenses’ classification and analysis, resource consumption administration, and pre and post cost calculations, have existed since the beginning of the 90s (Cardos & Cardos, 2010).
In management accounting, cost management has a crucial role and finds its foundations in understanding “cost behaviour”. “Cost behaviour analysis” can be defined as “the study of how cost changes when there is a change in an organisation’s level of activity”. (Definition https://www.accountingcoach.com/blog/what-is-cost-behavior).