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Final Report On Cost Center. 6th
Final Report On Cost Center. 6th
RESPONSIBILITY ACCOUNTING
collection, summarization, and reporting of financial information about various
decision centers (responsibility centers) throughout an organization; also called
activity accounting or profitability accounting. It traces costs, revenues, or profits
to the individual managers who are primarily responsible for making decisions
about the costs, revenues, or profits in question and taking action about them.
Responsibility accounting is appropriate where top management has delegated
authority to make decisions. The idea behind responsibility accounting is that each
manager's performance should be judged by how well he or she manages those
items under his or her control.
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
1. Provides a way to manage a large diversified The point at left has some credibility at the division
organization. Better decisions can be made at the level, but the system must be managed as a system not
local level. a group of subsystems. A RA stovepipe organization
creates conflicts between segments, e.g., transfer
pricing problems, purchasing department buying on the
basis of price, production departments pushing
defective products downstream to maximize labor
efficiency and production volume measurements.
2. Provides incentives to department managers This causes competition between segments and
and individuals to optimize their individual individuals rather than cooperation and teamwork.
performances. Prevents goal congruence. Creates slack and excess,
e.g., inventory buffers, excess capacity, people, and
vendors. Promotes ranking people which ignores
statistical variation. According to Deming, this
destroys moral, intrinsic motivation and teamwork.
3. Provides managers with the freedom to make Tends to ignore many, if not most interdependencies
local decisions. within the system. Decisions are based on self interest
rather than the best interest of the system.
4. Provides top management with more time to According to Deming, a system cannot manage itself.
make policy decisions and engage in strategic
planning.
5. Allows management to avoid understanding This is how management accounting lost relevance
the system by using top down remote control according to Johnson and Kaplan.
based on accounting measurements. Supports
point 4. The top down approach also ignores the concept of
continuous improvement and Deming’s concept of
leadership, i.e., managers need to understand the
system so that they can help facilitate improvement,
not judge and blame people for variations in financial
accounting results.
6. Supports management and individual Specialist can not understand the system and the
specialization based on comparative advantage. system cannot manage itself.
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but with clear instructions by managementas to the functioning of the system and
preparation of reports,etc., only relevant information flow in.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
An integrated textile unit showed a net profit after tax of Rs.272 million. Its
ROI (Return on Investment), was 17.5% which is much above the supposed cost of
capital of 12.5%.
The company was operating three divisions: (i) Spinning Unit, (ii) Weaving Unit
and (iii) a Finishing Unit. As of now, it is not apparent who earned what. So
managers of the three departments would be asking for bonuses or rewards.
Now suppose, the company asks its accountants to prepare Division-wise P&L
account and present the same to the management for performance appraisal of the
three managers.
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(Source: Wikipedia.org)
After considering division-wise performance, who do you think deserve the bonus?
Only the manager, Spinning Division, deserves the bonus. Manager Weaving has
just broken even by earning profit equal to cost of capital. Manager Finishing was
really a drag on the company’s resources and its losses were only hidden in
consolidated statements because of substantial contribution made by Spinning
Unit.
However, this is over-simplified example but it brings glaring facts to the notice of
the management and other users of the accounts.
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RESPONSIBILITY CENTER
A responsibility center is an organization unit that is headed by a manager who is
responsible for its activities. In a sense, a company is a collection of responsibility
centers, each of which is represented by a box on the organization chart. This
responsibility centers form a hierarchy. At the lowest level are the centers for
sections, wok shifts, & other small organization units. Departments or business
units comprising several of these smaller units are higher in the hierarchy. From
the stand point of senior management & the board of directors, the entire company
is a responsibility center, though the term is usually used to refer to units within the
company.t
Nature of responsibility center :
A responsibility center exists to accomplish one or more purposes, termed its
objectives. The company as a whole has a goals, & senior management decides on
a set of strategies to accomplish these goals. The objective of the company’s
various responsibility centers are to help these strategies. Because every
organization is the sum of its responsibility centers, if each responsibility center
meets its objectives, the goals of the organization will have been achieved.
Above diagram illustrates that core operation of every responsibility center.
Responsibility centers received inputs, in the form of materials, labor, & services.
Using working capital (e.g. inventory, receivables), equipment, and other assets,
the responsibility center perform its particular function, with the ultimate objective
of transforming its inputs into outputs, either tangible (i.e., goods) or intangible
(i.e. Services). In a production plant, the outputs are goods. In a staff units, such as
human resources, transportation, Engineering, accounting , and administration, the
output are services.
The products (i.e. goods and services) produced by a responsibility center may be
furnished either to another responsibility center, where they are inputs, or to the
outside market place, where they are outputs of the organization as a whole.
Revenues are the amounts earned from providing this outputs.
COST CENTER
Cost Centers are held responsible for the costs incurred but not for generating
revenue i.e. ., either the costs or the level of outputs can be independently
controlled but not both. It operates in 2 ways.
A cost center is part of an organization that does not produce direct profit and adds
to the cost of running a company. Examples of cost centers include research and
development departments, marketing departments, help desks and customer
service/contact centers.
Although not always demonstrably profitable, a cost center typically adds to
revenue indirectly or fulfills some other corporate mandate. Money spent on
research and development, for example, may yield innovations that will be
profitable in the future. Investments in public relations and customer service may
result in more customers and increased customer loyalty.
Because the cost center has a negative impact on profit (at least on the surface) it is
a likely target for rollbacks and layoffs when budgets are cut. Operational
decisions in a contact center, for example, are typically driven by cost
considerations. Financial investments in new equipment, technology and staff are
often difficult to justify to management because indirect profitability is hard to
translate to bottom-line figures.
Business metrics are sometimes employed to quantify the benefits of a cost center
and relate costs and benefits to those of the organization as a whole. In a contact
center, for example, metrics such as average handle time, service level and cost per
call are used in conjunction with other calculations to justify current or improved
funding. A cost center is one which is responsible only for the control of costs it
does not concern itself with pricing of products or even investing the surplus in a
fruitful manner, its only concern is with respect to managing the Costs it
encounters. Cost centers are the various departments to which various Kinds of
costs are allocated. In layman terms-If the executive of Administrative department
drinks the coffee than the cost cannot be charged to manufacturing department but
to administrative department. Technical terms packaging cost is allocated to sales
and distribution department. Cost of raw material to manufacturing dept and so on.
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COST
In performing managerial functions of planning and control, the manager should
know costs of each alternative. Costs data are also needed to make decisions such
as pricing, volume, make or buy, replacements, asset acquisition, product mix etc.
Further the performance of executives and their sub ordinates can be evaluated and
controlled only when a comparison of actual cost incurred and the costs that should
have been incurred is made. COST AND COST CURVES
MANUFACTURING COSTS
Manufacturing is a process of converting raw materials into finished goods through
the use of labor service and other facilities in factories 1. DIRECT MATERIAL
COST 2. DIRECT LABOR COST 3. FACTORY OVERHEAD COST
In a manufacturing company, manufacturing costs will include material, labor and
factory overheads, while nonmanufacturing costs will include distribution and
administration expenses.
DIRECT MATERIALS COST.
Materials are physical commodities that enter into the making of a product. These
are stores or raw materials. Direct materials are those which can be directly and
conveniently identified with the physical units of finished product. These materials
really enter into, and become part of a finished product. For eg, leather used to
manufacture shoes or wood used to make chair or steel to make steel almirah are
direct materials since they can be directly traced to finished products. Indirect
materials are used to in the manufacturing operations, but do not become part of
the finished products and cannot be identified separately .eg are cotton waste,
lubricants, grease. Oil etc.
DIRECT LABOR COST
Like materials, labor is also classified as direct and indirect. Direct labor is one
which is directly involved in converting raw materials into finished goods. These
labor costs vary very closely with units of finished goods. The wages paid to
workers who operate the machine is an example for Direct labor. Indirect labor is
required to perform manufacturing activities generally, but is not directly involved
in the conversion of raw materials into finished goods. Eg, wages paid to Foreman,
clerks, time keepers, purchase and store items, maintenance employees. Indirect
labor is included in factory overhead
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FACTORY OVERHEADS
It comprises of all indirect manufacturing costs which cannot be identified with
specific units of finished products. All manufacturing costs except direct materials
except direct materials and direct labor are included in factory overheads. Two
important elements of factory overhead are indirect materials cost and indirect
labor costs. Other indirect costs included in the factory overheads are factory rent,
depreciation, repairs, maintenance, power, light, taxes etc.
Again divided into Variable factory overhead & Fixed factory overhead .Variable
factory overheads is one which varies in direct proportion to units of output –
example is supplies. fixed factory overhead is non variable with production
depreciation, insurance, rent, supervisor’s salary
Combining Elements of Manufacturing cost
Direct mat cost + Direct Labor cost = Prime cost
Prime cost + Factory Over Head = Factory cost
Factory Cost + Sales Over Head = Total Cost
COST OF PRODUCTION
Supply of a commodity by the cost of its production. In order to produce a
commodity, the producer must have the factors of production. He should pay
wages to the laborers, interest to capital, rent on land, payment for raw materials,
transportation cost etc.
SELLING COSTS
Selling costs are the costs of marketing, advertisement and salesmanship. Essential
in the competitive economy. These costs are incurred to attract customers. Selling
costs are a peculiarity of an imperfect market and have no place in a fully
competitive market where dealers are supposed to be fully aware of the quality of
the goods and the conditions of the market.
"When we took the company back, it was way upside down," Bailey said. “We cut
costs like you wouldn’t believe for two years. We were able to pay off a huge
amount of debt for our small company and brought ourselves to the point where we
could start growing again."
Bailey wanted to expand NationLink's staff of 12 employees (down from a onetime
high of 35) and to grow revenue to $2.5 million within 15 months — and double it
again in a year.
The challenge Bailey confronted was to resume spending for growth without losing
the cost-control discipline developed over the last three years. "We’ve built a
culture of cost containment and frugality, and we could lose that as more money
falls to the bottom line and people are doing well," Bailey said. “It doesn’t matter
how much money you make; you always spend it all. We can't let ourselves get
back into that trap."
In March Bailey and his company became part of AllBusiness.com's special 6 for
'06 project and were paired with cost-center expert Denise O’Berry. "Andy had a
good handle on what he needed to do; he just needed someone to help focus his
efforts," O’Berry said. "Andy’s biggest obstacle is he often seizes on the idea of
the moment and doesn’t stay on track with what he’s doing."
you have never seen, and everyone is aware of the expenses their group incurs,”
Bailey wrote in May. They started reusing copier paper and turning off the lights.
"It's not the $2.40 cents worth of paper they saved that thrills me. It's the idea of
everyone thinking in those terms."
One of Baily’s initial concern was how to attract top-rate employees with highly
competitive pay packages, while also keeping salary and benefit costs in check. To
that end, he decided to create a new compensation plan that used profit — not
revenue — as a key measure of success. He also included all his staff, not just his
salesforce, in the new plan, which quickly received rave reviews from his
employees.
At the same time, he began to share important financial details with them, such as
the costs involved in hiring a new employee. "My team didn't realize how much it
actually cost to have someone work with us," he said at the time. As they grew to
understand the financial picture better, NationLink's employees began to be more
cost conscious.
"A lot of owners hesitate to share numbers with their employees, [even] when
they're the ones who can come up with ideas to make things better and make things
happen," said O'Berry.
Bailey's newfound openness was put to the test when two administrative staff
members asked to turn a part-time hourly person into a full-time employee. Bailey
discussed the cost of adding new employees and explained that NationLink could
not hire anyone unless it could match the cost with additional revenue. He asked
the staff members to analyze two options: improving efficiency while keeping the
employee part-time or increasing revenue and hiring the worker full-time.
Tracking Progress
Before the 6 for '06 project, Bailey had always managed his business on a profit-
and-loss basis. Typically, he determined how many lines of service or new
activations the company needed to do in a given 30-day period to break even, and
simply aimed to top those figures as much as possible.
"At the end of the month, we looked at the results and moved on without ever
thinking how to get cash in quicker or have more on hand," Bailey said. "We knew
what we had to do to cover our expenses because we'd been doing it that way for
13 years."
In that respect, O'Berry said, Bailey was like most small business owners. "He
knew how much he had to do each month to meet cash-flow requirements. But
those details end up cluttering an owner's mind. If you want to really manage your
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cash flow, you have to look at the big picture, not on a daily or monthly basis, but
six months or a year down the road."
With O'Berry's help, Bailey and his wife began working on a cash-flow budget. To
O'Berry, a cash-flow budget — a projection of the cash a company will receive and
spend in a given month — is invaluable for providing "a consistent picture of your
cash flow and what you'll have in the bank at any given time." It is also a great way
of analyzing your company's costs and seeing where cuts can be made.
The value of the cash-flow budget, Bailey now recognizes, is that it gives
management and the board of directors a sense of where the company is
financially. "If we put money into Web site development, we can track what it
produces over time," Bailey says. "And in retrospect, if you see something doesn't
work, you can ask why and make adjustments so maybe it does.
"If you're a small business that doesn't have a cash-flow budget, sit down and make
yourself one," Bailey says. "You'll be able to see your history, where you are today
and in the future. You can quickly make adjustments to improve your chances of
accomplishing what you want."
LESSONS LEARNED
Pay employees based on each business unit’s profit rather than sales.
Assign “expense lines” for individual employees to monitor.
Develop a cash-flow budget.
Use your cash-flow budget to gauge what new initiatives are working
and which ones aren’t.
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Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY