Evaluating The Cost Structures Of A Firm And Determine The Reason For Expenses Increasing

The purpose of this paper is to describe the budget process, variances and the major reasons of the variance to make all the financial decisions of the firm properly. This paper would also be helpful to explain that “make” or “Buy” decisions also play a significant role to improve the efficiency of the firm. In addition, the paper would also be useful to clarify that non-financial performance measure may be unsafe for the image of the firm.

Assuming that the company’s goal is to maximize profits, the current cost system is not an appropriate tool for strategic planning. The ambiguity of the overhead costs per product makes it difficult to accurately analyze the cause and effect relationships of changes and/or improvements to specific product line.

According to Epstein and Buhovac, (2014), costing system is a process designed to monitor the costs incurred in a certain business. Costing systems are meant to advise the management on how to choose the most appropriate course of action with cost efficiency and capability. According to Cardinaels and Labro (2009) costing system provides detailed cost information needed by management needs to control current operations with the aim of improving the future. Below are some of the costing systems that are common to many organizations (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014).

to monitor costs and allocate budgets: everything has a cost in an organisation and collecting data can help estimate the return on each investment.

Managerial accounting is essential for decision making. Making the best choice depends on the manager's goals, the anticipated results from each alternative, and the information available when the decision is made (Schneider, 2012). The different techniques associated with managerial accounting are very helpful in the decisions that need to be made. In order to truly understand decision making with managerial accounting one must first discern exactly what managerial accounting means and some of the techniques associated with it. The definition of managerial accounting will be discussed along with the techniques of cost management techniques, budgeting, and quality control.

The information found in financial statements outlines the financial activities of that company, and can help managers, creditors, and investors make many important decisions.

Anthony, Robert N., and David F. Hawkins. "Strategic Planning and Budgeting." Accounting: Text and Cases. 13th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2011. Print.

By linking cost management efforts to budgeting, companies improve the quality of information available for managers to use in developing their budgets. Accurate cost information is fundamental to budgeting. Companies that use accurate cost management techniques and provide budget developers with ready access to cost information improve both the accuracy and the speed of their budget process.

Essentially, with the current cost system, the managerial analysis is highly flawed due to a lack of crucial in-depth cost information, as indicated by:

Determining the unit cost is a quick way to check if companies are efficient in producing their products. The cost information system plays an important role in every organisation within the decision-making process. An important task of management is to ensure the control over operations, processes, activity sectors, and not ultimately on costs.

Bhimani, A., Horngren, C., Datar, S., Rajan, M. et al. (2012) Management and Cost Accounting. 5th ed. Edinburgh: Prentice Hall, p.369 - 378.

Essentially, with the current cost system, the managerial analysis is highly flawed due to a lack of crucial in-depth cost information, as indicated by:

It consists of weighting and combining the weights of the ten factors and to evaluate implementing ABC. The potential benefits of ABC can be analyzed in advance along two separate dimensions. And there are ten mediating factors (Pricing Diversity, Support Diversity, Common Processes, Cost Allocation, Growth of Indirect Costs, Pricing Freedom, Fixed Expense Ratio, Strategic Considerations, Cost Reduction Effort, Analysis Frequency) can guide management in determining the answers. The fist five factors (PD, SD, CP, CA, FG) based on the probability. The second dimension of the model seeks to establish decisions. lY axis potential for ABC due to cost distortion---PD.SD.CP.CA.FG lX axis proclivity to use cost information in decision---PF.FE.SC.CR.AF To start management must analyze and responses to two key questions: 1. For a given organization, is it likely that ABC will produce costs that are significantly different from those that are generated with conventional accounting, and does it seem likely that those costs will be "better"? 2. If information that is considered "better" is generated by the system, will the new information change the dependent decisions made by the management? After finish these questions managers of company can discuses the ten factors that support or reject implementation. Finally, the combined weighted scores are plotted as a point on one of the four quadrants of a graph.Plotting the Answers--- Use Contingency Grid Method The steps in the

The focus of this study was to examine activity based costing from the perspective of competitive advantage. ABC can support the strategic management process and provide significant benefit to organizations. This examination utilized the contingency theory as a theoretical basis for the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted. The data gathering instrument employed for this study is a structured questionnaire. Data are analyzed through SPSS version 16. Reliability analysis using Cronbach’s alpha value was applied on data collected. Factor analysis was employed using principal component method followed by Varimax with Kaiser Normalization, to find the factors or dimensions that explain variances by the data set. The factor analysis is based on four dimensions, namely, overall performance, strategic cost allocation method, increased efficiency and increased effectiveness having the factor loadings of over ±0.3. The regression results are positive and significant at the 5% level. Findings reveal that there is no statistically significant difference in cost reduction attained by ABC over Traditional costing, though ABC tended to have higher effect.

Executive summary: This assignment deals with the evaluation and calculation of cost accounting. In this assignment, we will discuss about the different types of costs that is related with the company, different methods of cost evaluation, appropriate techniques of cost accounting, preparation of routine cost report, to Use performance indicators to identify potential improvements, improvements to reduce costs, enhance value and quality, the purpose and nature of the budgeting process in business, appropriate budgeting methods for organization, Preparation of budgets according to the chosen budgeting method, Preparation of cash budget, Calculation of variances, identify possible causes and recommend corrective action etc.