Managerial Accounting Reflection Paper

Managerial accounting has benefited greatly to me from the input from lecturer given to me. I am so glad by having Dr. Amina as my lecturer for this course subject. So far, she teaches me with her full of commitment. Her lecture also interesting and she succeed to make me feel confident with this Managerial Accounting subject. Basically this subject benefits me to gain my knowledge about budget, decision analysis, standard cost and etc. I am able to determine the cost in the managerial accounting. This subject firstly killer subject for me because so many things need to remembered. Other than that, there are some obstacles happened to complete the assignments but everything solved on time. I am happy because this managerial accounting subject actually not very hard and it is interesting to study. A business student like me should study this subject because I can apply everything learned in real businesses someday. Here I listed out all the experiences one month of Managerial Accounting.

I have gained my knowledge from this managerial accounting and I cannot wait to apply all of it in my real life. The lecturer has teaches me all the chapters that very important and she had come out with easy and simple example for each of the topic I have learned. For chapter 1, learning objective achieved. Now, I know what differences between managerial accounting and financial accounting are. Basically managerial accounting provides economic and financial information for managers and other internal users. There are three classes of manufacturing costs. Manufacturing costs are typically classified as either direct materials, direct labor or manufacturing overhead. Form this chapter; I am able to indicate how cost of goods manufactured is determined. Other than that, now I know how to compute cost of goods manufactured and cost of goods sold.

For Activity- Based Costing, I have learnt how to recognize the difference between traditional costing and activity-based costing, differentiate between value added and non- value added activities. Basically activity- based costing is an approach for allocating overhead costs. More specifically, ABC allocates overhead to multiple activity cost pools and it then assigns the activity cost pools to products and services by means of cost drivers. A traditional costing system allocates overhead to products on the basis of predetermined plant wide or department wide rates such as direct labor or machine hours.

Cost- Volume Profit chapter have given me knowledge to distinguish between variable and fixed costs. Variable costs are costs that vary in total directly and proportionately with changes in the activity index. Fixed costs are costs that remain the same in total regardless of changes in the activity index. The contribution margin is the amount of revenue remaining after deducting variable costs. It is identified in a CVP income statement which classifies costs as variable or fixed. Other than that, I am able to compute the break-even point in dollars and unit. This chapter also gives me chances to prepare a CVP income statement.

Budgetary control and responsibility accounting is one of chapter covered in this Managerial Accounting subject. The use of budgets in controlling operations is known as budgetary control. In this chapter, I have learned to do budget report that compare actual results with planned objectives. I also known the use of budget report is based on the belief that planned objective lose much of their potential value without some monitoring of progress along the way. Basically budget report provides management with feedback on operations. From budget reports, management analyzes differences between actual and planned results and determines their causes. Management the enable to takes corrective action or decides to modify future plans.

Standard costs and balanced scorecard is the last chapter I have learned in this Managerial Accounting. Inside this chapter consist the formulas for determining direct materials and direct labor variances. This chapter enables me to find total materials variance, materials price variance and materials quantity variances. Other than that, there is labor cost. Total labor variance, labor price variance and labor quantity variance learned in this chapter. I also learned how to find total overhead variance. I am able to evaluate the results based on the formula which is positive variances suggest that price and quantity objectives have been met. If the answer is negative, this means that objective yet to meet and the actual price or quantity more than what expected in standard costs.

After study incremental analysis, I am now able to describe the concept of incremental analysis. Firstly, identify the relevant costs in accepting an order at a special order. Identify the relevant costs in a make or buy decision. Identify the relevant costs in determining whether to sel or process material further. Identify the relevant costs to be considered in repairing, retaining, or replacing equipment. Lastly, identify the relevant costs in deciding whether to eliminate an unprofitable segment or product. This chapter explains management’s decision making process and decision making approach called incremental analysis. Making decisions is an important management function. Management’s decision making process does not always follow a set patter because decisions very significantly in their scope, urgency and importance. Basically the use of incremental analysis is demonstrated in a variety of situations.

My first group assignment is financial statement analysis. This assignment applies some of the financial statement accounting analysis learned by analyzing the financial statements of a real company. In this assignment, I need to find financial statement of company for five or ten years. The financial statement is included income statement, balance sheet and statement of working capital. My group takes Air Asia Berhad annual reports for five years. Here we found out there are changes of the financial reports within five years. We can see the company still able to pay their debts even though the working capital decrease. This assignment enable student to evaluate how to make analysis the financial statement of the company. It is a little bit hard to find five years annual report of the public listed company. Our first company actually Astro Berhad. I and my team determined to do this company annual report. We have done half of this assignment but suddenly we are not found the annual report for year 2011. We have no choice, we change company and re- do our assignment. I am glad by having a team that really committed with work and motivated each other. Group assignment actually good for us to achieve more understanding about the assignment and we can share our knowledge each other. The assignment can be done on time.