Archive | July 2012

What does a management accountant do?

I read this interesting article from CGMA magazine a few months ago. It brings out some of the actual roles of management accountants in business. Personally, I never liked the term “management accountant” at all and have always thought of myself as more of an advisor and information provider. Have a read of the article.

July 20, 2012

Integrated reporting

Some recent items in the CGMA magazine summarise some of the features and issues with integrated corporate reporting. Integrated corporate reporting means reporting means more than just reporting the traditional financial/economic type reports to shareholders. Instead, an integrated reporting approach considers social, economic and environmental factors. In the longer term, it can be argued that if firms ignore the environment and society, then firm itself may not be sustainable.

Ideally, a business should be able to prepare a single report which shows now only the typically legally required financial reports, but also how its financial performance affects society and the environment. Some global companies are already doing this. For example, PUMA publishes and environmental profit and loss which values its impacts in terms of resource usages (see here). The CGMA has embarked on an integrated reporting pilot programme over the next two years. They asked an investor, accounts preparer and an integrated reporting advocate for their views. They make for some interesting reading – click on the links to read more. One of the key points emerging is not the difficulties faced in preparing the report or getting the information. Instead, trying to introduce more non-financial data without increasing the information loads (mainly legally driven) given to investors is a great challenge.

July 13, 2012

What is a step fixed cost?

by maccie1, flickr.com

From previous posts, you know what a fixed cost is. There is another type of fixed cost called a step (or stepped) fixed cost.

A step fixed cost takes its name from the fact that the cost can take a “step up” if certain things happen. This usually means a cost increases when the activity of a business exceeds a certain level, and the fixed cost then suddenly increases, but remains fixed at this new higher level.

Here are two examples which may help you to understand.

1) Employer liability insurance costs may remain quite stable until a certain threshold is reached. For example, it may cost €10,000 to have cover for up to 100 staff, but €15,000 if the staff number exceeds 100.

2) Typically, internet hosting costs include a high allowance for data traffic volumes. But if a company exceeds this, they may have to change to the next package up. This typically would give a much greater data traffic allowance, and the cost would increase in a step fashion.

July 6, 2012

What is a mixed-cost?

A mixed cost is a cost that contains both variable and fixed costs (see my previous two posts for more on these). Utility bills traditionally were a food example of a mixed cost. Take a telephone bill. Traditionally, a phone bill had a fixed cost which you had to pay even if you made no calls – the line rental in other words. Then you paid for each call, and the more calls you made the greater the total cost – in other words the call cost was variable. Nowadays phone bills tend to be fixed costs – all calls, line rental and Internet are bundled together into a flat monthly charge. Electricity and gas bills still tend to have a small fixed cost – the standing charge – which is paid regardless of use.