Flexible Budgets, Standard Costs, & Variance Analysis
What you'll learn
- Managerial & cost accounting tools
- Describe general managerial accounting topics
- Prepare and explain the benefits of a flexible budget
- Define and describe standard costs and cost variance analysis
- Discuss the benefits of sales variance analysis and how to calculate it
- Explain the reasons for materials variance analysis and how to calculate it
- Express the pros of direct labor variance analysis and describe how to calculate it
- Describe the benefits of overhead variance analysis and how to use it
Requirements
- An understanding of basic accounting terms
Description
Managerial & cost accounting tools
The course will introduce managerial accounting topics that will be used throughout the course, contrasting managerial accounting to financial accounting so that we are in the correct mindset as we move forward.
We will discuss flexible budgets, contrasting flexible budgets with static or fixed budgets, demonstrating the benefits of flexible budgets and how they can be used. We will work example problems related to flexible budgets and provide step by step instructional videos to apply the concepts.
The course will define and analyze standard costs and cost variance analysis, giving an overview of cost variance analysis concepts that we will go into more detail on in later sections.
We will explain sales variance analysis, discussing when it can be used, and how to calculate sales variances. We will provide example problems and step by step instructional videos so we can apply what we learn.
The course will cover direct materials variance analysis, showing what it is, how to use it, and how to calculate direct materials variance analysis. We will demonstrate the concepts listed using instructional videos and using example problems along with step by step instructional videos to complete them.
We will discuss direct labor variance analysis, demonstrating what it is, and how direct labor variance analyst is used. We will demonstrate the concepts with instructional videos and provide example problems and step by step instructional videos to complete them.
The course will discuss overhead variance analysis. We will describe why it is used and how to calculate overhead variance analysis. We will provide demonstration presentations and example problems with step by step instructional videos to help complete them.
We will also include a comprehensive problem on overhead variance and a comprehensive problem on variance analysis. The comprehensive problems will provide preformatted Excel worksheets that we can fill out along with step by step instructional videos. The Excel worksheets will generally have two or three tabs, one tab having the completed problem, the second tab having a preformatted Excel worksheet to work through the problem in a step by step format with instructional videos, and the third tab with a blank sheet that we can use to format our own Excel worksheet.
Who this course is for:
- Accounting students
- Business owners
- Anyone who whats to learn accounting
Instructor
![Robert (Bob) Steele](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.4 Instructor Rating
- 33,400 Reviews
- 647,525 Students
- 131 Courses
Through working with students from many different schools, Mr. Steele has learned best practices for helping people understand accounting fast. Learning new skills and finding the best way to share knowledge with people who can benefit from it is a passion of his.
Mr. Steele has experience working as a practicing Certified Public Accountant (CPA), an accounting and business instructor, and curriculum developer. He has enjoyed putting together quality tools to improve learning and has been teaching, making instructional resources, and building curriculum since 2009. He has been a practicing CPA since 2005. Mr. Steele is a practicing CPA, has a Certified Post-Secondary Instructor (CPI) credential, a Master of Science in taxation from Golden Gate University, a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Economics with an emphasis in accounting from The University of California Santa Barbara, and a Global Management Accounting Designation (CGMA) from The American Institute of CPA (AICPA).
Mr. Steele has also authored five books that can be found on Amazon or in audiobook format on Audible. He has developed bestselling courses in accounting topics including financial accounting and QuickBooks accounting software.
In addition to working as an accountant, teaching, and developing courses Mr. Steele has helped create an accounting website at accountinginstruction, a YouTube channel called Accounting Instruction, Help, and How Too, and has developed supplemental resources including a Facebook Page, Twitter Page, and Podcasts that can be found on I-tunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. Mr. Steele's teaching philosophy is to make content applicable, understandable, and accessible.
Adult learners are looking for application when they learn new skills. In other words, learners want to be able to apply skills in the real world to help their lives. Mr. Steele’s formal accounting education, practical work experience, and substantial teaching experience allow him to create a curriculum that combines traditional accounting education with practical knowledge and application. He accomplishes the goals of making accounting useful and applicable by combining theory with real-world software like Excel and QuickBooks.
Many courses teach QuickBooks data entry or Excel functions but are not providing the real value learners want. Real value is a result of learning technical skills like applications, in conjunction with specific goals, like accounting goals, including being able to interpret the performance of a business.
Mr. Steele makes knowledge understandable by breaking down complex concepts into smaller units with specific objectives and using step by step learning processes to understand each unit. Many accounting textbooks cram way too much information into a course, making it impossible to understand any unit fully. By breaking the content down into digestible chunks, we can move forward much faster.
Mr. Steele also makes use of color association in both presentations and Excel worksheets, a learning tool often overlooked in the accounting field, but one that can vastly improve the speed and comprehension of learning accounting concepts.
The material is also made understandable through the application of concepts learned. Courses will typically demonstrate the accounting concepts and then provide an Excel worksheet or practice problems to work through the concepts covered. The practice problems will be accompanied by an instructional video to work through the problem in step by step format. Excel worksheets will be preformatted, usually including an answer tab that shows the completed problem, and a practice tab where learners can complete the problem along with a step by step presentation video.
Mr. Steele makes learning accounting accessible by making use of technology and partnering with teaching platforms that have a vision of spreading knowledge like Udemy.