During their professional careers, managers in all organizations, profit and nonprofit, interact with their accounting systems. Sometimes managers use the accounting system to acquire information for decision making. At other times, the accounting system measures performance and thereby influences their behavior. The accounting system is both a source of information for decision making and part of the organization's control mechanisms thus, the title of the book, Accounting for Decision Making and Control.
The purpose of this book is to provide students and managers with an understanding and appreciation of the strengths and limitations of an organization's accounting system, thereby allowing them to be more intelligent users of these systems. This book provides a framework for understanding accounting systems and a basis for analyzing proposed changes to these systems. The text demonstrates that managerial accounting is an integral part of the firm's organizational architecture, not just an isolated set of computational topics.
1. Introduction
2. The Nature of Costs
3. Opportunity Cost of Capital and Capital Budgeting
4. Organizational Architecture
5. Responsibility Accounting and Transfer Pricing
6. Budgeting
7. Cost Allocation : Theory
8. Cost Allocation : Practices
9. Absorption Cost Systems
10. Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems : Incentive to Overproduce
11. Criticisms of Absorption Cost Systems : Inaccurate product Costs
12. Standard Costs : Direct Labor and Materials0
13. Overhead and Marketing Variances
14. Management Accounting in a Changing Environment
- Solutions to Concept Questions
- Glossary
- Index