ACCT07031 2019 Management Accounting

Describe the nature and purpose of management accounting.

 Apply the main principles of management accounting for budgeting, planning, controlling and short term decision making.

Identify and apply the main techniques used in the appraisal of capital expenditure decisions and interpret the results.

Discuss the importance of good working capital management.

Be able to distinguish between and apply job costing and process costing approaches in relevant situations

Using a system of live and recorded tutorials which are primarily focused on problem-solving, with plenty of opportunity for students to interact and raise questions. This to be re-enforced with individualised assessment questions when a topic is completed. (see more detail below)

This class uses a problem based approach using assessment platform (WIRIS). The student is provided with a set of questions relating to the topic studied and allows the student freedom to take similar questions and take time to 'play' to get familiar with the concepts of the questioned topic. The system provided individualised feedback directly related to the question and the student is notified as to what areas require improvement as well as providing an overall score for the assessment.

There will also be the classic assessment approach through an invigilated examination

Primarily through an examination for the repeat student.

Introduction to Cost Behaviour and Cost-Volume Relationships

 -cost drivers affect cost behaviour, cost-driver levels affect variable and fixed costs, break-even sales volume, cost-volume-profit graph, contribution margin versus gross margin, effects of sales mix on profits

Cost Management Systems and Activity-Based Costing

Describe step- and mixed-cost behaviour, management influences on cost behaviour, activity analysis direct and indirect costs, allocating costs, differences between traditional and activity-based costing (ABC) systems

Relevant Information for Decision Making with a Focus on Pricing  and Operational Decisions

- absorption and contribution-margin income statements, contribution-margin technique, factors that influence pricing decisions, Compute a target sales price by various approaches,  opportunity-cost analysis, make v buy, optimal product mix, equipment replacement decisions

Introduction to Budgets and the Master Budget

- principle steps in preparing a master budget, advantages, dysfunctional incentives, human relation problems caused by budgets,

Flexible Budgets and Variance Analysis

- flexible budgets and static budgets, activity-level variances and flexible-budget variances, price and quantity variances for materials and labour, variable overhead spending and efficiency variances

Capital Investment Proposal and Justification

- Describe capital-budgeting decisions and use the net-present-value (NPV) model to make such decisions. Evaluate projects using sensitivity analysis. Use the payback model and the accounting rate-of-return model and compare them with the NPV model.

Cost Allocation

- general framework, Allocation of the variable and fixed costs of service departments to other organizational units, direct and step-down methods, Allocation of joint costs to products using the physical-units and relative-sales-value methods, cost-allocation bases for overhead application to products and services, variable-costing approaches

Job Costing and Process-Costing Systems

-job-order costing v process costing, ABC system in a job-order environment, equivalent units, backflush costing with a JIT production system