Accounting Foundations: Managerial Accounting

Learn the basics of managerial accounting to help you make better organizational decisions.

Managerial accounting helps managers make decisions using an organization's financial data. An understanding of managerial accounting helps you figure out how much a product costs, analyze when your company breaks even, and budget for expenses and future growth. In this course, accounting professors Jim and Kay Stice cover all the fundamentals, including costs and cost behaviors, cost-volume-profit (CVP) relationships, cost flows, standard costing and activity-based costing, and budgeting.

Introduction

• Making business decisions through good accounting

1. Managerial Accounting and Business Decision-Making

• Introduction to managerial accounting
• The purpose of managerial accounting
• Recognizing problems and opportunities
• Controlling and evaluating data

2. Costs and Cost Behaviors

• Understanding sunk costs
• Cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis
• Controlling product cost flows
• Types of product costs
• Terms related to evaluation and decision-making

3. CVP Analysis

• Opening a Thai restaurant
• Contribution margin
• The CVP equation
• The break-even point
• Sensitivity analysis
• Sales mix

4. Cost Flows

• Understanding production costs
• Overview of cost control
• Cost flows in manufacturing organizations
• Cost flows in merchandising organizations
• Cost flows in service firms

5. Standard Costing

• Pricing a home remodel
• Responsibility accounting and the standard cost system
• Variances in materials price and quantity
• Labor rate and efficiency variances
• Controlling materials and labor variances

6. Using Activity-Based Costing

• The real cost of ice cream
• Introduction to activity-based costing
• The basics of activity-based costing
• Identifying overhead cost activities
• Analyzing overhead
• Identifying cost drivers
• Assigning production overhead
• Doing the math to influence your decisions

7. Budgeting

• Who needs a budget?
• The purpose of budgeting
• Budgeting for a manufacturing organization
• Budgeting for a merchandising organization
• Budgeting for a service organization
• Having a cash budget

8. Capital Budgeting

• The billion-dollar machine
• Understanding capital budgeting
• Discounting cash flows
• The payback method
• The unadjusted rate of return method
• The net present value (NPV) method
• The internal rate of return method
• Considering qualitative factors

Conclusion

• Key takeaways

Introduction

• Making business decisions through good accounting

1. Managerial Accounting and Business Decision-Making

• Introduction to managerial accounting
• The purpose of managerial accounting
• Recognizing problems and opportunities
• Controlling and evaluating data

2. Costs and Cost Behaviors

• Understanding sunk costs
• Cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis
• Controlling product cost flows
• Types of product costs
• Terms related to evaluation and decision-making

3. CVP Analysis

• Opening a Thai restaurant
• Contribution margin
• The CVP equation
• The break-even point
• Sensitivity analysis
• Sales mix

4. Cost Flows

• Understanding production costs
• Overview of cost control
• Cost flows in manufacturing organizations
• Cost flows in merchandising organizations
• Cost flows in service firms

5. Standard Costing

• Pricing a home remodel
• Responsibility accounting and the standard cost system
• Variances in materials price and quantity
• Labor rate and efficiency variances
• Controlling materials and labor variances

6. Using Activity-Based Costing

• The real cost of ice cream
• Introduction to activity-based costing
• The basics of activity-based costing
• Identifying overhead cost activities
• Analyzing overhead
• Identifying cost drivers
• Assigning production overhead
• Doing the math to influence your decisions

7. Budgeting

• Who needs a budget?
• The purpose of budgeting
• Budgeting for a manufacturing organization
• Budgeting for a merchandising organization
• Budgeting for a service organization
• Having a cash budget

8. Capital Budgeting

• The billion-dollar machine
• Understanding capital budgeting
• Discounting cash flows
• The payback method
• The unadjusted rate of return method
• The net present value (NPV) method
• The internal rate of return method
• Considering qualitative factors

Conclusion

• Key takeaways