Relevant Costs - Managerial Accounting Decisions & Scenarios
What you'll learn
- Analyze the significance of relevant costs in decision-making, avoiding pitfalls and understanding their impact.
- Evaluate equipment investments using cost-benefit analysis techniques, considering future benefits and the sunk cost fallacy.
- Apply relevant cost analysis to assess the implications of accepting special offers for profitability and customer relationships.
- Determine make or buy decisions by evaluating relevant costs, quality control, and supply chain efficiency.
- Evaluate the profitability of processing products further versus selling at the current stage of production.
- Assess costs of scrapping defective inventory versus reworking it, considering salvage value and customer satisfaction.
- Optimize sales mix by analyzing relevant costs, demand patterns, and market trends.
- Evaluate segment viability through relevant cost analysis, considering financial performance and alignment with organizational goals.
- Utilize cost data to set sales prices effectively, employing cost methods and considering market dynamics and competition.
Requirements
- A solid foundation in accounting principles, including an understanding of financial statements, cost allocation methods, and basic financial analysis.
- Familiarity with managerial decision-making frameworks, such as cost-volume-profit analysis and relevant costing concepts.
- Competency in using spreadsheet software (e.g., Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets) for data analysis, including functions like summing, averaging, and creating basic formulas.
- An eagerness to learn and apply strategic decision-making techniques in a business context, with a focus on optimizing resources and driving long-term success.
Description
In this comprehensive course, you will gain essential knowledge and practical skills to navigate complex managerial decisions by employing relevant cost methods. Whether you are an aspiring manager, entrepreneur, or individual seeking to make informed financial choices, this course will equip you with the tools needed to enhance your decision-making capabilities.
Throughout the course, we will explore various scenarios and real-world examples to illustrate the application of relevant cost methods in a range of managerial accounting contexts. By understanding how to identify and analyze relevant costs, you will be able to make strategic decisions that have a positive impact on your organization's financial health and long-term success.
In the first section of the course, we delve into the significance of relevant costs and their role in decision-making processes. You will gain a deep understanding of how to differentiate between relevant costs and irrelevant costs. By avoiding common decision-making pitfalls, such as the sunk cost effect and overlooking opportunity costs, you will be able to make more accurate and informed choices.
Next, we explore the evaluation of equipment investment decisions. We will examine the factors involved in deciding whether to purchase new equipment or retain older equipment. By understanding the sunk fallacy effect, you will learn to make decisions based on future benefits rather than past investments. Through cost-benefit analysis techniques, you will gain the skills necessary to evaluate equipment investments effectively.
The course also addresses the managerial accounting implications of accepting special offers. We will investigate scenarios where businesses may seemingly incur losses by accepting special offers but can ultimately benefit from them. By applying relevant cost analysis, you will gain insights into how to make strategic decisions when evaluating special offers, taking into account factors such as long-term customer relationships and potential future profits.
Make or buy decisions play a crucial role in managerial accounting. In this course, we will delve into the factors involved in deciding whether to produce a component internally or outsource it to an external vendor. Through relevant cost evaluation, you will develop the skills to assess factors such as cost savings, quality control, and supply chain efficiency to make optimal make or buy decisions.
Furthermore, we will analyze the decision to process a product further or sell it at its current stage of production. You will learn to evaluate relevant costs and determine whether processing a product further will result in a higher selling price and increased profitability. Additionally, we will explore decision-making related to defective inventory, weighing the costs of scrapping inventory versus reworking it for potential salvage.
The course also addresses the question of sales mix optimization. You will gain insights into deciding which products to produce and in what quantities to maximize profitability. By applying relevant cost methods, you will develop strategies to allocate resources effectively and achieve the most advantageous sales mix.
Finally, we will discuss the decision of eliminating a segment or department of a company. Through the application of relevant costs, you will learn how to assess the financial viability of a department and make informed decisions regarding its continuation or elimination.
Throughout the course, you will also discover how to use cost data to set sales prices using cost methods and variable cost methods, ensuring that your pricing strategy aligns with profitability goals.
Join us on this exciting journey to become a strategic decision-maker equipped with the power of relevant cost methods. Enroll today and unlock the key strategies that will drive success in your managerial decision-making endeavors.
Who this course is for:
- Aspiring and current managers seeking to enhance their decision-making skills and improve their ability to drive profitability and long-term success in business.
- Entrepreneurs and business owners looking to make informed financial choices and optimize resource allocation.
- Professionals in finance, accounting, or related fields who want to deepen their understanding of relevant cost methods and their application in managerial decision-making.
- Undergraduate or graduate students studying business, accounting, finance, or related disciplines, who wish to supplement their academic learning with practical knowledge in strategic decision-making.
- Individuals interested in personal finance and making informed financial decisions, as the concepts covered in this course can be applied to personal financial management.
- Anyone seeking to enhance their analytical and critical thinking skills and apply them in a business context to make more effective decisions.
Instructor
- 4.4 Instructor Rating
- 51,228 Reviews
- 899,043 Students
- 148 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.