Man­age­ment Ac­count­ing

Course content

Aim of the course

Managers are expected to be able to contribute to the strategic and financial development of a company. While producing prosperity for the organization they are also expected to protect the prosperity of the next generations. Today, managers need to understand the business they are working in. To do so, they need to understand accounting numbers. Financial and non-financial information for decision-making, planning and follow-up purposes constitutes a central part of today's managers' function in order to identify and support and transform value-creation activities. The ability to handle valid and relevant data about the company's profitability and convert this data into insightful analyses related to the company's value creation will be a decisive success parameter for future managers.

The purpose of this course is to allow students to develop a basic knowledge of the role of financial and non-financial information in decision-making, planning and control. The focus will be on the design, implementation and application of various conventional and modern management accounting tools, concepts, and models.

Contents 
Competition has increased with technology development. Management accounting has also expanded from historical value reporting to more real-time reporting and predictive reporting. At the same time, organizations are faced with new challenges such as sustainability. The course will also cover the importance of management accounting information for data analytics, including how management accounting as an information system provides revenues and cost information for planning and controlling the business, sales analysis, customer profitability, and how it can facilitate decision-making.

The course will cover advanced concepts of management accounting, including when and how good management accounting systems enhance the quality of decision-making and creates a competitive advantage.

The course contains the following core elements of management accounting:

• Revenue and cost classification and behaviour for decision making and control
• Different cost allocation methods used for different purposes in different organizations
  • Contribution margin accounting and analysis
  • Absorption costing as a traditional cost allocation method
  • Activity based costing as an advanced cost allocation method
• Segment profitability analysis 
• Budgeting as a target setting, planning and management control procedure
• Standard costing and flexible budgeting 
• Inclusion of non-financial KPIs - exemplified through The Balanced Scorecard as a measurement and management system 
• Use of accounting data for strategic management purposes
• Measurement and management of decentralized organizations
• The course will address the use of Data Analytics on Management Accounting problems