Management Accounting (ACC210) - Charles Sturt University

ACC210 - Management Accounting is a subject that examines how accountants provide financial and other information for managers to use in organisations. It focuses on product costing systems, accounting control systems, and contemporary international accounting and management interventions. The subject covers various types of costs, overhead cost allocation issues and methodologies, spreadsheet modelling, budgeting methodologies, performance measurement methodologies, and international dimensions of management accounting. Upon completion, students should have technical, analytical, and critical thinking skills to design and operate product costing and management accounting control systems, review and analyse contemporary issues around cost performance measurement, use computer spreadsheets effectively, and understand the impact of cultural and international dimensions on management accounting practice.

Major topics to be covered include:

• management accounting functions, terms and cost flows;
• accounting for and control of materials, labour and overhead costs;
• activity based costing for more accurate tracing of overhead costs;
• traditional costing systems: job costing, process costing, operation costing, joint costs, and standard costing systems;
• alternative costing systems: variable costing, absorption costing, and Just-in-Time (JIT) costing;
• feedforward control: comprehensive budgeting;
• feedback control: theories of motivation, budgetary participation, flexible budgets, and standard cost variances;
• responsibility accounting and accounting controls: organisation structure, responsibility accounting, decentralised organisations, various alternative quantitative and qualitative performance measures; and
• application of management accounting tools in an international setting.