University of Queensland - ACCT2102: Intermediate Management Accounting

This course extends on the student's knowledge of management accounting gained in ACCT1102. Initially the course will revise and extend cost accounting concepts: relevant to planning, controlling and decision-making activities within organisations. The initial focus is on the cost accounting systems that managers use in their decisions about resource allocation and performance evaluation; especially within the manufacturing environment. We will extend upon job costing systems by studying more refined costing systems including departmental allocations and activity-based costing as well as process-based costing. We will then explore relevant costs for decision making for various real-world scenarios. The final part of the course revisits budgets and expands on this fundamental planning tool with variance analysis for performance evaluation and control.

This course teaches a major field of accounting, which emphasises costing concepts, systems and techniques that provide information for use in the planning, controlling, and decision-making activities of an organisation. Each of these activities is directed towards the achievement of the organisation's goals and objectives. A significant emphasis in this course is placed on developing anﾠunderstanding of the different costing systems that can be used by managers in manufacturing and service organisations to cost output, aid in the preparation of plans, and help to facilitate control of operations and activities.

✔ After successfully completing this course you should be able to:

• Explain cost behaviour, its application to breakeven analysis and its importance in management decisions.
• Apply alternative methods of calculating the costs of products, services and other cost objects and evaluate how the method used can affect management decisions and organisational performance.
• Compare and critically evaluate actual versus planned operating performance.
• Evaluate the need for management accounting information, systems and practices to change in response to changes in the operating and business environments.