Introduction to Cost Accounting

I can imagine the very first business activity which occurred on earth would be a barter trade, maybe it was an exchange of a bucket of rice with a bucket of wheat or a piece of meat? To analyse the fairness of the deal, both parties must have asked themselves” is the bucket of rice is worth the same as the bucket of wheat?” At the times when there...

Cost Classification – Part 1

Classification by elements of a product/service Classification of costs by its elements involves examining the products and services to identify different components of costs which were incurred to produce those products or providing those services. If we examine any product or service, we can easily identify different elements which require spe...

Cost Classification – Part 2

Direct or indirect link to a product/service This classification looks at each item of costs to ascertain if that specific cost is being incurred directly due to the production of a unit of product or service or there is an indirect relationship of the cost with products and services. Direct costs are usually incremental costs which means the m...

Cost Classification – Part 3

Functional/Departmental costs Production and non-production costs are the major categories in this area. However, if an organisation does not produce but only buy and sell then it will not incur production costs. Production costs Production costs are those costs which are incurred when raw material is converted into finished and part-fin...

Cost Classification – Part 4

Costs correlated to activity levels Fixed costs All those costs are fixed costs which do not change with the change in the level of activity (within a certain range) i.e. if a business produces/ sells more or less products. Examples for fixed costs are •Rent & business rates •Fixed salaried staff •Building Insurance •Telephone...

Absorption Costing

Absorption costing is the original technique to deal with indirect costs, therefore, it is also called “Traditional Costing”. This method is an easy way to allocate overheads to products and services in practice although it can give inaccurate figures allocated to different products and services in complex manufacturing scenarios. In my experience,...

Activity-Based Costing

Activity-Based costing (ABC) is a relatively new method of calculating total cost for products and services. Although in the classroom exercises and exam questions, this method may seem similar to Absorption Costing, in practice it is very different and much more precise technique than absorption costing. ABC records all activities in an organis...

Target Costing

We have discussed earlier in this book that one of the main reasons for calculating total cost of a product/ service is to establish a price for it. Many organisations produce a product, establish the total cost and then add a mark-up to set a price for their products. Well – that’s what used to happen but not anymore in many sectors. After glob...

What is a “Transaction?

It is a legal responsibility of businesses to keep records for all business transactions. This article explains this term in simple words. Financial Accounting function mostly records data from within the organisation by recording business transactions. A transaction is an event which can be measured in monetary terms i.e. it has a financial value...

Tax Relief for working from home – Full Story

What is tax relief for working from home and how to check if you qualify for it. Many of us had to work from home during this pandemic especially during the first lockdown from March- August 2020 and then in January-February 2021. Although working from home saves money on travel and maybe even lunch, it increases the household costs like lighting ...

Introduction to Budgets

I have discussed this in my previous article “Introduction to Management Accounting” that there are three primary functions of management 1.Planning 2.Control and 3.Decision making. Budgeting is one of the most important tools used for planning and control purposes. However, these are not the only reasons budgeting is used in an organisation. T...

WHO ARE STAKEHOLDERS OF BIG BUSINESSES???

Financial statements contain wealth of information which can be useful to the variety of readers and users of these statements. These users are called “Stakeholder” as they have some sort of stake (interest or risk) associated with the business. These stakeholders are the individuals or organisations who have some sort of interest, financial and/or...

Introduction to Annual Reports

To carryout a financial analysis of a company, analysts need financial statements of the business. For many students, these are sourced from annual reports published by the business. This article explains these reports and guides students on how to source these. Annual Reports If you are required to write a dissertation or a coursework on f...

Understanding Profit or Loss Statement  (Income Statement)

The purpose of this article is to explain the contents of Profit or Loss Statement which can then be used for ratio analysis to analyse the company’s financial performance. As ratio analysis use many figures from Profit or Loss statement, without understanding this statement properly it would not be possible to carry out an accurate and comprehensive financial analysis of the company. 

Understanding Published Financial Statements Part 3 – Statement of Cashflow

Statement of cash flow is the third financial statement given in the annual reports. You would have noticed that all five elements of financial statements have already been covered by Statement of Profit or Loss (Income & Expense) and Statement of Financial Position (Assets, Liabilities and Capital). Therefore, a question arises on the purpose ...

8 reasons you should write a business plan

1.A business plan will help you set achievable goals and milestones. Every good business plan outlines SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely) and meaningful goals and guide your sales and marketing strategies. 2.Research has proven that Business planning helps businesses to grow faster. The process of writing your plan an...

Introduction to Business Plan

I have had many business ventures in life, some successful and some not so much. When a business idea gets stuck in my head, I tend to think about it all the time, trying to come up with a strategy to start the business, how to execute ideas and how to make it successful. And I use to think that I had the whole plan at the back of my head and there...

Let’s understand Operating Cash Cycle

Working capital is the amount of money which is invested in the current assets or short-term assets of the business to run the business on daily basis. This money is used to pay expenses like staff wages and utility bills etc. However, most of this money is used to buy goods for resale (except those businesses where only services are sold). Ideally...

What is the Methodology for your coursework?

If you are studying in the UK on an undergraduate or a Masters’ degree course, you will be required to write coursework, projects and/or dissertations for most of the modules in your Programme of study. All of those assessments require you to describe the methodology of your work. In one of my own modules, Managing Finance, students have to write a...

What is an executive summary?

Most of the modules in a university degree programme, undergraduate or postgraduate, require students to write coursework as part of their assessment. This coursework is mostly in an essay, research article or a paper format which have an “abstract” at the start to give readers a brief insight into the work and its contents. Abstracts are not writt...

What are Objectives for your coursework?

Aims and Objectives are the most important part of a report/coursework because without these your coursework has no direction and has no reason to be done. It is also a very simple (but fundamental) part because there's no technicalities involved in this section. One should get it right because usually aims and objectives are given in the assessmen...

Introduction to Ratios

This article will introduce you to the ratio analysis which is a simple but very important technique to analyse the financial statements. It's so simple to teach and understand that it is taught at the start of any accounting qualification. For example, it is taught at year one on an undergraduate accounting qualification. In fact, there is always ...