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Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:
- Show a clear understanding of the basics of management accounting;
- Solve numerical accounting problems up to level two with a software package;
- Solve problems with the aid of MS Excel.
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Management Accounting and Corporate Decision Making (MACDM) is the branch of the accounting science that supplies the management of business entities and non-for-profit organisations with accounting information to support their decision making. The focus of MACDM is offering relevant and timely cost and revenue information, which is critical for successful management decisions regarding many corporate issues, like introducing a new product or service, maintaining existing product lines, the internal allocation of corporate resources and resizing divisions or departments and controlling costs.
Management Accounting is part of the Management Information System and with current state-of-the-art IT is evolving gradually towards Business Intelligence (BI). Cost control requires understanding the cost structure of the firm, the advantages and disadvantage of different methods for cost calculation and cost allocation systems in use. Given the profusion of cost data within a firm, management does not need random data, but organised information improving the quality of decision-making. The kind of cost information required depends on the nature of the decision, like one-order-only decisions, short run or long run price setting decisions, or decisions on production planning and competitive pricing policy. Part of this work is done by management accountants. Their tasks, their professional and ethical standards, and how they use the organisation’s internal information system to organise cost data will be extensively discussed in this course.
The topics covered in this course are. among others: transfer pricing, activity based costing, designing performance indicators, budgeting and variance analysis, outsourcing and cost estimation and spoilage accounting and production planning.. Non-financial indicators like quality assessment and ethical codes for the management accountant are integrated in this course. Because accounting is done with Excel nowadays in most organisations, Excel is fully integrated in this course.
Academic skills
This course focuses on the following academic skills:
Analytical skills
- Being able to solve problems (identifying the problem, devising a path towards the solution, following this path, verifying the outcome) for more complex assignments.
- Being able to identify, interpret and critically evaluate the main line of reasoning, for more complex problems.
- Being able to evaluate evidence in text and presentations for more complex problems.
Information processing
- Being able to work with data software, such as Excel.
Format
Lectures and tutorials in computer rooms.
Assessment method
- End term test (weight: 70%). This end term test consists for approximately 80% of computational problems and 20% multiple choice questions.
- Online midterm test (weight: 30%)
Effort requirements
- Full attendance and active participation at all tutorials are expected.
However, the formal effort requirement is attending at least 85% of the tutorials.
- Solving weekly problems on an Electronic Learning Environment (ELO)
Courses that build on Management Accounting and Corporate Decision Making
- Advanced Accounting (ECB3AA)
- Operations and Supply Management (EC3OSM)
In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN number. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.
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