Management and Cost Accounting For Dummies – UK

Learn to: Understand the basic concepts, terminology and methods in management and cost accounting Interpret accounting information for business decisions and budgeting Manage costs in your organisation Get to grips with management and cost accounting – fast With easy-to-understand explanations and real-life examples, Management & Cost Accounting For Dummies provides students and trainees with the basic concepts, terminology and methods to identify, measure, analyse, interpret and communicate accounting information in the context of managerial decision-making. Get a bird's-eye view – find out what management and cost accounting is all about, why it's so important and what every accountant and businessperson needs to know about it Learn the costs of doing business – get the lowdown on the various kinds of business costs, how they behave, and how to tackle job costing, process costing and product costing Be the man, or woman, with a plan – learn about the key role business accountants play in planning and budgeting for the future Go with the flow – discover how to develop dynamic budgets and how budgeting is key to long- and short- term business decisions Gear up – outfit yourself with powerful accounting tools for monitoring, evaluating and controlling activities throughout your organisation Open the book and find: Tools and techniques for communicating accounting information The balanced scorecard and the theory of constraints – two must-have tools Ways to use management accounting for evaluation and budgetary control How to classify and allocate the different types of costs Ten key management accounting formulas Ten careers in management and cost accounting

Introduction  1 Part I: Getting Started with Management and Cost Accounting  7 Chapter 1: Planning and Control: The Role of Management Accounting 9 Chapter 2: Using Management Accounting in Your Business 27 Part II: Understanding and Managing Costs  45 Chapter 3: Classifying Direct and Indirect Costs 47 Chapter 4: Allocating, Apportioning and Absorbing Overhead 71 Chapter 5: Costing Products Flowing Through a Business 95 Chapter 6: Job Costing: Pricing Individual Orders 105 Chapter 7: Process Costing: Tracking What’s Produced and How Much it Costs 119 Chapter 8: Observing How Variable and Fixed Costs Behave 143 Part III: Planning and Budgeting  161 Chapter 9: Using Contribution Analysis to Make Better Decisions 163 Chapter 10: Decision–Making Within the Reality of Limited Capacity 189 Chapter 11: Deciding on Long–Term Purchases: Capital Budgeting 205 Chapter 12: Naming Your Price: Approaches to Decision–Making 229 Chapter 13: Doing Deals between Company Divisions: Transfer Prices 243 Chapter 14: Planning Budgets for the Future 259 Part IV: Using Management Accounting for Evaluation and Control  279 Chapter 15: Using Flexible Budgets to Exert Control 281 Chapter 16: Variance Analysis: Flexing Standard Costs 293 Chapter 17: Establishing Accountability with Responsibility Accounting 317 Chapter 18: The Balanced Scorecard: Reviewing Your Business’s Report Card 329 Chapter 19: Squeezing Out of a Tight Spot with the Theory of Constraints 347 Part V: The Part of Tens  357 Chapter 20: Ten Key Management Accounting Formulas 359 Chapter 21: Ten Careers in Management Accounting 371 Index  375

Mark P. Holtzman, PhD, CPA, is Chair of the Department of Accounting and Taxation, Seton Hall University. He has taught accounting at college level for 17 years. Sandy Hood is a lecturer in management and cost accounting. He also lectures on the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy course, a one-year course that helps budding entrepreneurs set up their own businesses and learn practical business skills.