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Essay Instructions: Management accounting is challenged by the fact that corporations are governed in a way that promotes the high achievement for their stakeholders, including investors, employees, and the society at large. An accountant is challenged by responsibilities to provide accurate financial statements, assuring compliance and ethical behavior, and, most importantly, participating with corporate leadership in developing and implementing strategies and practices that assure the continuity of the corporation.


Answer these two questions.
Identify some financial planning modules used within an organization. How are these modules used to make financial decisions?


If you have been given the task of deciding whether to fix or replace a fixed asset, what cost factors would influence your decision, and why?

Essay Instructions: Is Management Accounting in the public sector different to management accounting for the private sector.

Australian Harvard references

Essay Instructions: Assessment brief:
You have been asked (by your boss) to give a talk to new business start-up owners entitled ?How you can use management accounting to ensure your financials are always under control?.

Please write an essay for your boss telling him exactly what your will be saying.

Essential reading prior to commencing this assignment
Black, G. (2009) Introduction to accounting and finance (2nd edition). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

Dyson John. R. 2007 Accounting for Non-Accounting Students (7th Ed.) FT Prentice Hall.

Warren, M. F. (1998) Financial Management for Farmers & Rural Managers (4th edition). Oxford: Blackwell Science.

Additional texts can be found in the college library or in the module handbook.
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Learning outcomes tested:
Students will be able to:
Understand and apply basic accounting conventions.
Prepare and interpret financial statements of sole traders companies.
Use cash flow statements to distinguish between the cash and profit of business organisations.
Understand the differences between the various cost classifications of a business and how they can be used to aid decision-making.

Marking criteria:
Assessments are marked according to College Policy using the current marking criteria for assignments.

Referencing / academic misconduct:
All work must be referenced properly to avoid charges of plagiarism or cheating using the referencing system described in the Harvard Referencing Guide (mini Harvard Guide attached) and in accordance with the current RAC Academic Regulations.

Support Documentation:
All guidance, marking criteria and regulation documents are available from the College intranet.

HARVARD REFERENCING ? A BRIEF GUIDE

The College uses the Harvard System for referencing (sometimes referred to as the Author-Year or Name-Date system). When referencing it is important to remember that:
? acknowledgement must be given when quoting, citing or summarising other people?s work.
? enough information must be provided in the list of references to enable a reader to trace the original source.
? referencing should be consistent.
All your written documents, essays, reports and dissertations must include references to the sources of information you have used. These references will be cited both within the text and in a list at the end of the work. Correct referencing will help you to avoid plagiarism, i.e. passing off other people?s words and ideas as your own.

Referencing within the text
You must always acknowledge the source of any direct quotation or illustration, as well as the source of any more general references you may make. This will usually be done immediately following the quotation or relevant passage of reference, within the text.

Use only the surname of the author (only use initials if there is more than one author of the same name) followed by the year of publication. If a quotation is cited, also indicate the page number(s) on which it may be found, e.g.:
Smith (1983) has used this particular technique
or:
Application of this particular technique (Smith 1983) indicates?
or:
It is claimed that, ?Severe degradation of the water system could be a significant constraint to growth in the Nile region? (Singleton 1992: 251).

Nothing else is needed for referencing within the text ? only author surname(s), publication date and (sometimes) page numbers. There are a very few exceptions and these are covered in the more comprehensive Harvard Guide available from the library.
List of references cited

This is a list of works that you will have used as sources of information or inspiration. It consists of a single list in alphabetical order by author's surname, or institutional name (or title where no name is given).

For books and pamphlets the basic pattern is:

Surname(s), Initials(s). (Year) Title (in italics or underlined). Edition (if given). Publisher.
e.g. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. L. (2006) Marketing management. 12th ed. Pearson Education.

[NB you do not need to give an edition statement if it is a first edition]

For journal articles the basic pattern is:

Surname(s), Initials(s). (Year) Title of article. Name of journal. Volume(part number): pages.

e.g. Partington, M. (2006) Housing: proportionate dispute resolution. Landlord and Tenant Review. 10(3): 81-84.

For Internet sources such as an e-book the basic pattern is:

Author (Year) Title. [online]. Publisher. Available from: URL [date accessed].

e.g. Anglia Ruskin University. (2006) Harvard system of referencing. [online]. Anglia Ruskin University. Available from:
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/guides/new_harvard.php [Accessed: 27/07/06].

For Internet sources such as an e-journal the basic pattern is:

Author (Year) Title of article. Journal title. [online] volume (issue), pagination. Available from: URL. [Date accessed].

e.g. Horesh, R. (2002 Sept) Better than Kyoto: climate stability bonds. Economic affairs. [online]. 22(3):48-52 Available from: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext//PDFSTART
[Date accessed 30.9.08].

For Internet sources such as a web page the basic pattern is:

Author (Year) Title of web document or web page. [online] Available from: URL. [Date accessed].

e.g. DEFRA (2008) Climate change and energy. [online] Available from: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/index.htm [Date accessed 30/09/08].

The publication date of a website could be, for example, the date it was last updated. This is often shown at the foot of a web page. If no date is given put (no date).

If a web page has no identifiable person or organisation that you can cite as the author, then you ought to be asking yourself whether it is a resource you should be using anyway. If you decide to go ahead, then use the web page?s title in place of the author name.

For other types of material follow the examples given in the main Harvard Guide available from the Library, or borrow Cite Them Right, copies of which are in the library at B 808.02 PEA.

A word of caution before citing Internet resources

More and more work is being published online and electronically and again you should follow the Harvard system as closely as possible as shown above. However, before you cite an Internet source make sure that you have asked the same questions of it as you would of a textbook or journal article, such as:

? Is it a reliable source of information? How do you know?
? Who is the author and what ?authority? does he/she have?
? Who is the intended readership?
? Does the information show a particular bias?
? Is the information up-to-date?
? Will it pass academic scrutiny?

Essay Instructions: Explain how management accounting can supply information to assist the management of the organisation.
You are not required to investigate and report on the organisation’s actual management accounting system (even if you can find out).
You are to write a 1500 word report as though you were a management consultant writing to the board of directors.
WE DO NOT WANT ANY NUMBERS UNLESS YOU CREATE THEM TO DEMONSTRATE AN IDEA

company's name : Thai Airways (http://www.thaiairways.co.th)

It has an introduction
A main body (see the next slides)
A conclusion

Background to the organisation showing good reading of appropriate sources 25%
Review of the nature and role of management accounting 10%
An analysis of the organisation, showing its information needs, the management accounting techniques it might use and decisions it could then make.50%
The strengths and weaknesses of your analysis â€" for example the additional information you would have liked in order to improve your analysis.15%

The reason for this is to introduce your organisation (briefly) and to show what a manager in this organisation will do. Later you will show how m.a. helps.
A manager will make decisions about the organisation’s products, processes etc. â€" therefore your introduction will cover this.
This introduction will reveal the kind of problems that your organisation faces and must overcome.
We do not want the history of the organisation and any information that you will not use later.
Choose your organisation carefully â€" one that you can understand. You need to be able to imagine the kinds of decisions that a manager might make

An analysis of the organisation, showing its information needs, the management accounting techniques it might use and decisions it could then make.
This is the hard part that attracts the most marks
You are to link part 1 and part 2 â€" you organisation’s needs to the techniques and methods of management accounting
What does m.a. Do that will help this organisation?
How can it improve processes?
How can it compete better?
How can it choose between products?
How can it use m.a. for pricing?
Planning, controlling, motivating, organising etc
Difficult â€" but you are applying what you have learned to the problems of the organisation.

There are faxes for this order.