...Joan Didion: What is Home? In Joan Didion’s essay “On Going Home” she writes about leading a double life. She feels like one person when she’s with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, and a completely different person when back “home” surrounded by her childhood family in the Central Valley of California. During this particular trip, she begins to reflect on her life in Los Angeles. Didion contemplates the fact that she often feels uneasy around her husband, just like he feels uneasy being around her family. At a crossroad, she must decide not only who she is, and the life she wants, but also the kind of life she wants for her daughter. Her life in Los Angeles has cleansed her from her youth—one that was dusty and full of useless trinkets. She ponders the time her husband wrote the word “D-U-S-T” on those useless trinkets and she remembers her feelings of sadness and indignation. She says, “We live in dusty houses…filled with mementos quite without value to him” (139-40). The dust-covered trinkets signify what is important to her, or what needs to be addressed in her marriage. Yet, these objects just lay there waiting for someone to see them—for someone to dust them off and care for them—not unlike how Didion wishes her husband would see her and nurture her in their marriage. Didion wonders which of her two homes is normal or if they are both flawed. When she and her husband are with her family, he becomes apprehensive about her behavior, “…because once there I fall...
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...Critical Analysis of a Research Paper Towards an integrated contingency framework for MAS sophistication Case studies on the scope of accounting instruments in Dutch power and gas companies By Sandra Tillema Title The title suggests that the article will give guidance towards a contingency framework for MAS sophistication. The Contingency framework states that there is no one right way to manage an organisation, so the part “towards integrated [...] framework” with the word “contingency” seems like a paradox. We feel that we might not have chosen this article if we were looking at the title only because it seemingly contradicts itself. The group agreed that the title is quite long. We have analysed it by defining the main words of which we used the Macmillan Dictionary (2002) (See appendix B). After understanding the words and theory explanation, the title became quite easy to understand. Abstract and Introduction We feel that the abstract provides concise and simple information. It is a good explanation and expansion of the title. We have chosen this article because it can be easily understood. The abstract states that many companies are being convinced to implement newly developed management accounting systems and also comments on its inappropriateness. The author states the reason for this is due to the contingency theory perspective. She also highlights that this article is based on the cases of two power and gas companies. The introduction...
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...Chapter 1 Pick any major television network and describe some planning and control activities that its managers would engage in. ABC network is one of the primary national public broadcaster and it reflects the national heritage ,diversity and culture of various regions across the globe. Planning activities : Planning involves establishing and defining goals and specify how to achieve them. The prime planning activities that ABC would opt includes ; deciding upon the need of how many shows need to be schedule ,with how many production companies they need to schedule and negotiate ,how new shows will be picked and how much money needs to be allocated to per new show. Controlling activities : controlling evolves gathering feedback either positive or negative to make sure that effective execution of plan has taken place or not in relation to the changes in surroundings and circumstances. The controlling activities that ABC will opt would be determining if there were enough planned shows , were there any new shows loosed out to competitors, is the method on deciding on new shows being managed and run effectively,The meetings with the production companies going effective and smooth and giving a look upon the budget that either the shows and activities are running according to the budget or not. If you had to decide whether to continue making a component part or to...
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...The Principles, Benefits and Compliance of Lean Accounting As a way to reduce costs, manufacturing businesses today are looking for a leaner approach to production and are focusing on the overall process of producing an item to eventually sell to a consumer. This process is called the value stream, which is defined in Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis as “the value-added activities needed to design, manufacture, and deliver a given product or product line to customers” (Horngren, Datar, & Rajan, 2014, p. 635). With the assistance of technology advancements to support with the communication of the different components of the value stream, processes have been developed, like Just in Time (JIT) production, that allow for the lean production of merchandise. Dan Woods describes this lean production process, in an article published in Forbes: “In a lean process, the demand signals pull the materials through the flow processes and the right number of products is created with as little waste as possible. When all the suppliers of materials are also making their processes lean, the result is that the entire supply chain is extremely responsive and efficient. “ (Wood, 2009) To go along with this lean production system, lean accounting was developed as “a costing method that focuses on value streams, as distinguished from individual products or departments, thereby eliminating waste in the accounting process” (Horngren, Datar, & Rajan, 2014, p. 635). This paper will summarize...
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...UNIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES (UPS), ACCRA WEEKENDS SCHOOL BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION NAME: AVEVVOR JACKSON DOE INDEX NUMBER: 12BBK359 LEVEL: 300 SUBJECT: MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING DATE OF SUBMISSION: 24TH MAY, 2013 Q1 Management accountant prepares, develops and analyses key financial information to ensure that an organisation's management make well-informed decisions to ensure future stability, growth and profitability. They establish and maintain financial policies and management information systems, as well as provide a high quality support service by liaising with management colleagues on all aspects of finance. The role combines accounting skills with business management skills. Management accountant’s role is to look to the future. They analyse the performance of a business and advise on how to pre-empt problems, adapt to changing circumstances and improve value. This is done by managing and reducing operational and production costs and implementing newer more effective strategies. They can work in a specific division or across the whole organisation. below are the main roles of management accountant i. informing key strategic decisions and formulating business strategies; ii. preparing periodic financial statements, including profit and loss accounts, budgets, cash flows, variance analysis and commentaries; iii. monitoring and evaluating financial information systems and suggesting improvements where needed; iv. analysing financial performance...
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...yu March, 2012 Product Costing - Best Practices by Heering Ligthart On Manufacturing Accounting Editor's Note: There's so much to think about with product costing: the amount of detail you'll need, maintaining master data, variances… the list can go on. This article by Heering Ligthart discusses some key topics for managing Product Costing efficiently. He'll cover best practices in costing security, using "Last In" calculation, working with multiple branches, and finally recording and finding historical costs. Introduction I have implemented JD Edwards Manufacturing and Distribution modules at several companies and have found that there are always questions surrounding product costing setup. Cost components are essential for controllers to determine the costs for manufactured items. This raises some questions. For instance, how much detail regarding product cost do you want to keep? And how will you maintain the master data on product cost, keeping the different cost Cost components are essential for variances within boundaries and to a minimum controllers to determine the costs for to keep the costs in line with reality? manufactured items. This article highlights key topics for managing Product Costing using JDE, while keeping the costing understandable. Although the scenarios used in the article all contain a manufacturing branch with different distribution branches, most topics are applicable to distribution branches as well. While cost price programs and batches...
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...balances. The added security and control will not only serve to increase productivity but it will also decrease loss and waste. ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT This report will start with the Accounting department as it is the easiest to see and understand the method we are using and why we are using them. The bare basics with be to form and accounting role which will be applied to all members of accounting. This role allows all member of accounting to perform the roles necessary to perform the basic shared duties of the Accounting department. This also prevents anyone who does not have the basic accounting role from performing accounting duties. Now that the basic accounting role has been addressed, the specialized roles need to be assigned. This report will do this first by defining the specialized Accounting roles that are needed. These roles are General Ledger, Payroll, Sales and Purchasing, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Order Entry, Procurement, Sales and Purchasing History, Invoice and Shipping, Financial Reporting, there are also EDI, Bar Code Reading, and Executive Decision Support Systems roles exclusive to the San Jose. These roles are best handled in a three stage process of checks and balances. The first part will be one person to enter the accounting information be it payroll, accounts payable, purchasing, or any other accounting information. Which we be handle by the entry specialist role (Payroll Entry, Purchasing Entry, Accounts Payable Entry, and so...
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..."Stop Worrying about Cost Management: Use This Advice to Prevent Failure" Cost management represents controlling and planning the finances or the budget of the company. In other words, it represents management accounting that is used for predictive analysis. The predictive analysis is used for forthcoming costs and can help in reducing the risk of exceeding the defined budget. We unconsciously perform activities and use practices from cost management. We all plan and control our actions in order to prevent undesired results. Especially when it comes to our monthly budget, we know exactly how much we should spend or what type of activities we should undertake in order to prevent exceeding our monthly limit. However, planning and management...
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...medical techniques and medicines and consequent increase of consumed costs, many hospitals are under pressure to adopt more advanced cost management techniques usually utilized only in profit organization sector. Hospital managers frequently seek the advanced techniques, for better understanding of relations between the cost and provided services. One of the key factors of effective company management is ability of accurate estimation of the cost of products. Product costing is an essential economic tool used to quantify the cost of individual interventions carried out. The need for an accurate method of costing in hospital organizations is frequently emphasized by many authors. Gujral et al.1 comment, that healthcare organizations use cost accounting to estimate the unit cost of services they provide....
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...CURRENT COST ACCOUNTING METHODS – CHALLENGE FOR ACCOUNTING PROFESSION Livia RAC, dr Györgyi PETKOVICS University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Economics, Subotica, Serbia liviar@eccf.su.ac.yu, pegy@eccf.su.ac.yu Abstract / Abstrakt In its existence, cost accounting, as main part of management accounting, is continuously changing. Economic realities have made it necessary for most companies to have organizational changes as well as cost reduction. Markets have become global with competitors offering high-quality, low-cost goods and services. Speed, accuracy as well as understanding and meeting consumers’ needs come in front. The proliferation of products and services adds to the complexity of getting work done throughout an organization. This complexity is one of the chief causes of rising costs everywhere. Although in these new circumstances some companies underrate the cost accounting systems’ importance, we cannot put them aside. Cost accounting has to provide relevant cost information for corporate executives to make correct decisions. Traditional cost techniques cannot model the really needed expenditures for producing a product well. Because of this, some techniques were developed, which measure the relation between costs and cost originators in more complex correlations and not just with a simple quantity-cost relations. Beside the traditional techniques (actual costing, standard costing, normal costing, etc.) new methods appear. Among the others, these are: Activity-Based Costing...
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...Statements on Management Accounting PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING TITLE Value Chain Analysis for Assessing Competitive Advantage CREDITS This statement was approved for issuance as a Statement on Management Accounting by the Management Accounting Committee (MAC) of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). IMA appreciates the support of The Society of Management Accountants of Canada (SMAC) in helping create this SMA and extends appreciation to Joseph G. San Miguel, of the Naval Postgraduate School, who drafted the manuscript. Published by Institute of Management Accountants 10 Paragon Drive Montvale, NJ 07645-1760 www.imanet.org Special thanks are due to Randoif Holst, SMAC Manager, Management Accounting Guidelines, for his continuing project supervision and to the members of the focus group (including MAC members Dennis Daly and Thomas Huff) for contributing to the improvement of the final document. Copyright © 1996 Institute of Management Accountants All rights reserved Statements on Management Accounting PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING Value Chain Analysis for Assessing Competitive Advantage TABLE OF CONTENTS I. II. III. IV. Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Value Chain Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Competitive Advantage and Customer Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 V. The Role of the Management Accountant...
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...CHAPTER 1 THE ACCOUNTANT’S ROLE IN THE ORGANIZATION TRUE/FALSE 1. Management accounting information focuses on external reporting. Answer: True/False 2. A good cost accounting system is narrowly focused on a continuous reduction of costs. Answer: True/False 3. Modern cost accounting plays a significant role in management decision making. Answer: True/False 4. Financial accounting is broader in scope than management accounting. Answer: True/False 5. Cost accounting measures and reports short-term, long-term, financial, and nonfinancial information. Answer: True/False 6. Cost accounting provides information only for management accounting purposes. Answer: True/False 7. The key to a company’s success is always to be the low cost producer in a particular industry. Answer: True/False 8. Companies generally follow one of two basic strategies: 1) providing a quality product or service at low prices, or 2) offering a unique product or service often priced higher than competing products. Answer: True/False 9. The supply chain refers to the sequence of business functions in which customer usefulness is added to products or services. Answer: True/False 10. An effective way to cut costs...
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...In the process of accountancy reforming and internationalizing, our country refers to the accounting standards in the USA to a large degree. However the audit failure always happens in America accounting firms. In recent years, a series of financial embezzling cases have taken place in the United States. The quantities and influence wouldn’t be anticipated. Audit failure means that CPA provides error audit opinion for unfaithful statements because he or she doesn’t confirm to audit standard. Audit risk is the risk that the auditor may unknowingly fail to appropriate his opinion on financial statements that are materiality misstated. The main difference of audit failure and audit risk is that CPA whether or not conforms to audit standard. There are six reasons which can lead to audit failures. The first is the lack of sound legal system; the second in the circulation of marketing economy was not standard; the third is short of independence; the fourth is that accounting firms and CPA is a lack of professional ethics; the fifth is that CPA don’t have sufficient professional cautions and occupation concerns; the sixth is that quality system is not strict. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit on March 26, 2002, against the founder and five other former top officers of Waste Management Inc., charging them with perpetrating a massive financial fraud lasting more than five years. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, charges that defendants...
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...in Management, Volume 12, Issue 4, 2014 Emmanuel K. Oseifuah (South Africa) Activity based costing (ABC) in the public sector: benefits and challenges Abstract Peter Drucker (1986), in “Management: Tasks, responsibilities, and practices” states that business enterprises and public-service institutions, are organs of society which do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfil a specific social purpose and to satisfy need of society, community, or individual. To achieve the above objectives, managers of these institutions must plan, control and make decisions about the resources entrusted to their care. A key element of efficient organizational decision making is to use reliable information, both operational and managerial accounting data for analysis and decision support. This can be achieved by using activity-based costing (ABC) method. The underlying premise of ABC is that resources are consumed by activities to produce outputs or products and services (US General Services Administration, 2006). It focuses on the allocation of indirect costs to products and services, which was traditionally done on arbitrary basis. ABC is useful in two situations: areas with large and growing indirect and support costs (Krumwiede, 1998a; Becker, Bergener and Räckers, 2010), and areas with a large variety in products, customers and processes (Cooper, 1988a, 1988b; Groot, 1999). The unique characteristic of public sector organizations as overhead-intensive service entities...
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...Flexible Budgets TEAM C ACC 543 March 10, 2014 Flexible Budgets When planning for the future, a flexible budget is a forecasting tool that brings revenues, expenses, costing and production information. Flexible budgets provide the company with reliable performance evaluation to select the best direction for achieving the most profit at various sales or production levels under consideration. The information gleaned from a flexible budget expedites making choices and decisions to guide the company ventures while assisting in defining the fixed and variable costs of the overall operation. In brief, we will investigate the relationship between the flexible budget and those fixed and variable costs as well as explore the differences between static and flexible budgets. We will also investigate how they are suitable for cost-volume-profit analysis. Relationships between Fixed and Variable Costs Used in a Flexible Budget There are two main costs that need to be managed to budget which are fixed costs and variable cost. No matter how much merchandise is sold or how many services are offered fixed costs do not change. These costs are things such as rent, insurance and salaries. Regardless if the business is not making enough profit these costs have to be paid. Variable cost can change according to how many products are made. Variable costs change according to output. Fixed costs behave much differently than variable costs. Remember that a relevant range of activity...
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