ACCT 640 Accounting Concepts and Procedures I

1: Post a synopsis on a topic that is related to this week's readings in the textbook. Use at least three sources for in your review of the topic. Your review should be similar to a "literature review lite" which covers the topic is some detail, but not fully, due to the constraints in time and also in word limitation.

2: In Us what you expect to learn in this course. (Managerial accounting)

3: In the Reflections Forum,Please state how this knowledge could be applied at your current or a prior position and how you or your employer could benefit.

1.Managerial Accounting refers to the process of identification, measurement, analysis, interpretation and communication of the information of the businesses in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives (Weygandt, Kimmel & Kieso, 2015). People often consider managerial accounting same as financial accounting. However, there are some major differences between financial and managerial accounting. The organizational managers use managerial accounting as a tool to control the organization. On the other hand, external users use financial accounting as a tool for financial decision taking (Warren, Reeve & Duchac, 2013). The primary focus of managerial accounting is to focus on the reports of the business segments while the primary focus of financial accounting is the financial reports of the companies. It can be seen that there are three major works or functions of management; they are planning, controlling and decision-making (Maher, Stickney & Weil, 2012). The planning process helps to set the organizational goals and helps to develop the ways to achieve them. Development of budgets is another crucial step of planning process. It is the function of the planning process to ensure that all the plans are working properly. Three major components of the decision-making processes are what to sell, what to serve and how to execute the plan. There are four major components of managerial accounting; they are marketing majors, operation management majors and human resource management majors and accounting majors. The organizational managers use to apply all the three functions of management in each of the four components of managerial accounting (Edmonds et al., 2016).

The manufacturing costs of the business organizations can be classified into three major categories; they are direct materials costs, direct labors costs and manufacturing overheads costs. Direct material costs are associated with the raw materials that are the integral part of the manufacturing process (Braun et al., 2014). The direct labor costs of the organizations can easily be traced to the unit of products. Wages paid to the labors can be taken as an example. However, the manufacturing costs cannot be traced easily. The manufacturing costs can be classified into two types; they are selling costs and administrative costs. There are major differences between the products costs and period costs. The components of products costs are direct materials, direct labors, manufacturing overheads and others. The components of period costs are selling costs and administrative costs (Crosson & Needles, 2013). The manufacturing costs can be classified as prime cost and conversion cost. Based on the cost behavior, costs can be classified into three types; they are variable costs, fixed costs and mixed costs. Variable costs fluctuate based on the change in the activity level. On the other hand, the change in the level of production does not have any effect on the fixed costs. In case of the mixed costs, both the elements of fixed costs and variable costs are there. There are two methods of preparation of the income statements; they are traditional format and contribution format. Direct costs can be easily traced while indirect costs cannot be easily traced. It is important to classify the costs in order to make financial decisions (Demski, 2013).

2.Many crucial financial aspects can be learn from the course of managerial accounting. The identification process of the manufacturing costs is one of the major learning outcomes of this course. One can easily provide examples of the manufacturing costs after the identification process. With the help of this knowledge, one can be able to develop the income statements of the companies considering the cost of goods sold at the same time. The identification and understanding of different types of costs like fixed costs and variable costs is important outcome of this course. The identification of various costs includes the identification and understanding of direct and indirect costs. One will be able to classify the various types of costs from this course and it is another crucial outcome of this course (Needles, Powers & Crosson, 2013). After the completion of this course, it will be possible to make differentiation between process costing and job-order costing. With the help of this differentiation, one can know about the documents used in the job-order costing system. The knowledge about the rates of the overheads is another important learning outcome of the course of managerial accounting. From this course, one can be able to prepare the journal entries in order to record various types of costs in the costing system. The application of overhead costs in the work place with the help of various overhead rates is another important learning outcome of the course of managerial accounting. The preparation of the T-accounts in order to show the flow of the costs is another crucial aspect of the course of managerial accounting (Braun et al., 2014).

3.In this week, the covered topic was on the various aspects of managerial accounting. In this particular week, I have come to know many things about the various chapters of the course of managerial accounting. Among all the chapters studied in this week, managerial accounting and various cost concepts chapter was the most interesting to me. The reason is that there are many interesting facts in the cost concepts that can be applied in the workplace for the betterment of the company and the employer. For the manufacturing organizations, it is important to know about the cost structure, cost classifications, cost behaviors and others. It is always the objective of the organizational managers to reduce the cost of production, as this process will help to increase the profitability of the organizations. For this reason, it is important for the organizational managers to know the cost structure and cost behavior of the manufacturing process. With the help of the knowledge of managerial accounting, I shall be able to implement effective cost strategies to minimize the cost of production. The minimization of the cost of production helps to increase the revenues. For the implementation of the cost strategies, one needs to have sufficient knowledge in the course of managerial accounting. The cost minimization strategy of the organizations helps both the employers and organization. The employers will be able to earn more revenues. As a result of this act, the employees will be beneficial as they will get better wages and salaries.

References

Braun, K. W., Tietz, W. M., Harrison, W. T., Bamber, L. S., & Horngren, C. T. (2014). Managerial accounting. Pearson.

Crosson, S. V., & Needles, B. E. (2013). Managerial accounting. Cengage Learning.

Demski, J. (2013). Managerial uses of accounting information. Springer Science & Business Media.

Edmonds, T. P., Edmonds, C. D., Tsay, B. Y., & Olds, P. R. (2016). Fundamental managerial accounting concepts. McGraw-Hill Education.

Maher, M. W., Stickney, C. P., & Weil, R. L. (2012). Managerial accounting: An introduction to concepts, methods and uses. Cengage Learning.

Needles, B. E., Powers, M., & Crosson, S. V. (2013). Principles of accounting. Cengage Learning.

Warren, C. S., Reeve, J. M., & Duchac, J. (2013). Financial & managerial accounting. Cengage Learning.

Weygandt, J. J., Kimmel, P. D., & Kieso, D. E. (2015). Financial & Managerial Accounting. John Wiley & Sons.