COST ACCOUNTING

STUDY AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT
This course opens up many career possibilities, not limited only to the accounting field.  Qualified, trained cost accountants – like those who study and successfully complete this course – are needed in all sorts of enterprises, including industrial, manufacturing, project management and service-providing companies.

Accounting and financial personnel who already have accounting studies will also greatly benefit from increasing their cost accounting knowledge, as will managers and business people in all types of business environments.

SUMMARY OF MAJOR TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE:

• Cost accounting – its scope and definition.
• Cost accounting techniques and relationship to budgeting.
• Appraisal of benefits and methods of cost accounting.
• Cost accounting terminology; classification of costs, overheads, direct costs, total costs.
• Dealing with cost centres and cost units.
• Cost behaviour in different circumstances, distinguishing differences between types of costs.
• Classes of costs, prediction and analysis of costs, methods and models for handling costs.
• Labour costs, remuneration methods for workers, output, hours, direct and indirect costs.
• Material costs; pricing methods, FIFO, LIFO, AVCO, replacement costs.
• Stock valuation, just-in-time stocks.
• Absorption costing; overheads, rates of absorption, application to cost units and centres.
• Absorption costing for non-manufacturing organisations.
• Activity based costing; overheads, AMT, cost drivers, activities, the business environment.
• Marginal costing, revenue statements, contribution, ratios, breakeven analysis, safety margin.
• Marginal costing short-term decision making, make or buy, single orders, shortages, factors.
• Planning, budgeting; framework, process, control, integration, data, zero-based, activity-based.
• Standard costing and variance analysis, investigation, causes, appraisal.
• Capital investment appraisal; discounted cash flows, ARR, IRR, NPV, payback, risk.