[heva__x]

Hi Guys,

I am studying HNC Accounting (not sure what the equivalent of that is in England, I live in Scotland) and my graded unit is next week. I'm feeling fairly confident but there are a couple of things in the theory section that we haven't actually learned much about in college. These subjects are costing systems and the use of IT to assist in the provision of management information.

Is anyone out there studying the same course or similar that could point me in the right direction of some reading material for these subjects?

Would be great to hear back from someone!!

[A.A.T.]

For costing systems read up on Standard costing, Absorption (Full) costing, marginal costing and the most evolved and liked by exam boards is ABC (Activity Based Costing). However the system is focused more on what the outcomes can be for a business i.e. actual unit costs for the latest period, actual costs of operating a department for the latest period and/or the forecast costs to be incurred at different levels of activitity, remembering that management accounting focuses more on data as a management tool rather than financial accounting. (Perhaps think of break-even or Cost-Volume Profit Analysis).

Essentially a business sets their selling price using cost + mark-up so the question is how is cost defined. Is it the direct costs which marginal costing focuses on or total cost involving overheads/expenses which absorption costing dictates as well as ABC however ABC determines cost drivers and allocates overheads differently (less subjectively than absoprtion). There are obviously pros and cons of each and acceptable methods forr IAS (International Accounting Standards) and IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards.

A general overview of how ICT can integrate accounting information is usually straightfoward however specifically to Management Accouting would involve an ICT system collecting information from the accounts and internal data to produce budgets / costings such as staffing/ labour, reward schemes or production costs, determining variance (actual minus budgeted), Inventory (stock) cards etc This is refered to as "Integrated Accounting Systems"

Any questions just get in touch.

Hope this is useful.

Prof. Accounting