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CHAPTER 1Introduction

Dr. Hisham Madi

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Main references Supporting the Course

Horngren, HT., Datar, S.M. and Rajan, M (2012). Cost Accounting A Managerial Emphasis (14th) Prentic Hall.

Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Alnoor Bhimani, and Srikant M. Datar, Management and Cost Accounting, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 2005.

Michael W. Maher, Madhav V. Rajan, and William N. Laner, Fundamentals of Cost Accounting, Mcgraw – Hill, 2006

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Assessment Methods and Types

Assignment 10 MarksAttendance 5 MarksQuiz 10 MarksMidterm Test 25 marksFinal Examination 50 Marks

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Accounting Discipline Overview

Accounting systems process economic events and transactions into information helpful to managers

Processing any economic transaction means collecting, categorizing, summarizing, and analyzing

Accounting systems provide information found in the financial statements as well as in internal performance reports.

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Accounting Discipline Overview

Management accounting—measures, analyzes, and reports financial and nonfinancial information to help managers make decisions to fulfill organizational goals. Management accounting need not be GAAP compliant.

Financial accounting—focuses on reporting to external users including investors, creditors, banks, suppliers, and governmental agencies. Financial statements must be based on GAAP

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Accounting Discipline Overview

Management accounting—measures, analyzes, and reports financial and nonfinancial information to help managers make decisions that will help the company achieve its goals or implement its strategy.

Management accounting need not be GAAP compliant.

Financial accounting—focuses on reporting to external users including investors, creditors, banks, suppliers, and governmental agencies. Financial statements must be based on GAAP

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Accounting Discipline Overview

Cost accounting provides information for management accounting and financial accounting

Cost accounting – measures, analyzes and reports financial and nonfinancial information related to the costs of acquiring or using resources in an organization.

Cost management decisions include decisions such as whether to enter new markets, implement new organizational processes, and change product designs

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Major differences between management and financial accounting

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Strategy and Management Accounting

Strategy specifies how an organization matches its own capabilities with the opportunities in the marketplace. There are two broad strategies: cost leadership or

product differentiation

Strategic cost management—describes cost management that specifically focuses on strategic issues.

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Strategy and Management Accounting

Management accounting helps answer important questions such as: Who are our most important customers, and how can we be

competitive and deliver value to them? What substitute products exist in the marketplace, and how

do they differ from our own? What is our most critical capability? Will adequate cash be available to fund the strategy or will

additional funds need to be raised?

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Creating value is an important part of planning and implementing strategy.

Value is the usefulness a customer gains from a company’s product or service. The entire customer experience determines the value a customer derives from a product.

Management Accounting and Value

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The Value chain is the sequence of business functions in which a product is made progressively more useful to customers.

The Value chain consists of:1. Research & development (Generating and experimenting

with ideas related to new products, services, or processes)

2. Design of Products and Processes (Detailed planning, engineering, and testing of products and processes)

3. Production4. Marketing (Promoting and selling products or services to

customers or prospective customers)

5. Distribution (Processing orders and shipping products or services to customers)

6. Customer service

Management Accounting and Value

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Management Accounting and Value

Customer service (Providing after-sales service to customers)

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Key Success Factors

Customers want companies to use the value chain and supply chain to deliver ever-improving levels of performance when it comes to several (or even all) of the following:Cost and efficiency: Companies face continuous pressure to reduce the cost of the products they sell.Quality: Customers expect high levels of quality. Total quality management (TQM) aims to improve operations throughout the value chain and to deliver products and services that exceed customer expectations Time: New-product, Customer-response timeInnovation: A constant flow of innovative products or services is the basis for ongoing company successSustainability: the development and implementation of strategies to achieve long-term financial, social, and environmental performance.

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A Five-Step Decision Making Process in Planning and Control

1. Identify the problem and uncertainties.2. Obtain information; Gathering information before

making a decision helps managers3. Make predictions about the future.4. Make decisions by choosing between alternatives; When

making decisions, strategy is a vital guidepost; many individuals in different parts of the organization at different

5. times make decisions.6. Implement the decision, evaluate performance, and learn.

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Management Accounting Guidelines

Three guidelines help management accountants provide the most value to the strategic and operational decision- making of their companies:

Cost–benefit approach: benefits of an action/purchase generally must exceed costs as a

basic decision rule. Managers rely on management accounting information to

quantify expected benefits and expected costs although all benefits and costs are not easy to quantify

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Management Accounting Guidelines

Behavioral and technical considerations: people are involved in decisions, not just dollars and cents.

Different Costs for Different Purposes: Managers use alternative ways to compute costs in different decision-making situations

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A Typical Organizational Structure and the Management Accountant

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