The best private companies do …what exactly to be successful?
Short post this week , but no less interesting I hope. Here’s a link to a nice article on Forbes which gives the key habits of successful private companies. Article
Managers should know the numbers
At the end of June this year, Michael O’Leary from Ryanair was his usual self at the Paris Airshow. He let a few jibes fly at almost everyone. He also signed an order with Boeing for new aircraft, worth around $1.5 billion. Plans for future aircraft purchase were mentioned too and O’Leary compared two possible aircraft – one from Boeing and one from Airbus. While he suggested both were similar aircraft, the Boeing has 9 more seats and he said ‘that’s worth a million bucks’. When I read this , I thought is this just another quip or does we know his numbers well?
So, here are my calculations:
9 seats at average revenue of €70 = €630
Assume four flights per day per aircraft, so 630 x 4 =€2,520.
Finally, assume 360 flying days per year, this gives 360 x €2,520 = €907,200.
Let’s not argue over the rounding, and maybe my sums and assumptions are not correct. But a round €1million per aircraft per annum adds up to a lot of money. So although O’Leary’s rule of thumb may seem like a quip, it seems to be quite a good rough measure. He is an accountant after all!
Cash accounting – an alternative to accruals accounting? And what about accounting software?
English: Accounting machine from UK manufacturer Powers-Samas. (Norwegian Technology Museum, Oslo.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In Ireland and the United Kingdom (and maybe come other countries) it has always been possible for smaller business to pay VAT based on cash received rather than on an accruals basis. You probably know what the accruals concept is, but if not click here. When I teach accounting or prepare accounts, the accruals concept is used almost without exception. The profit & loss account (income statement) and balance sheet (statement of financial position) will definitely use the accruals concept. In fact, these financial statement often take a different name and format when prepared for a cash-based business. For example, when I teach how to prepare the financial statement of not-for-profit organisations such as clubs, we often refer to a “Receipts and Payments Account” and a “Statement of Affairs”. The former is like an income statement, but is based on cash records; the latter is a list of assets and liabilities and will normally draw on the accruals concept.
From April 1st 2013, the UK tax authorities permits smaller unincorporated businesses to use a cash based accounting scheme where the turnover is less than £77,000 (see here for more detail). I’m not a UK tax expert, but from my reading about the topic on the web, the “income” of a small business will be the cash received, and the “expenses” will be cash paid for business expenses. This sounds like a reasonable effort to simplify the tax system for the smallest of businesses. The accruals concept may not be that relevant to many of these businesses as, for example, they may have few assets (to depreciate) and receive payment for most work as soon as it is done. So all fine? Well apparently, many accountants protested this new scheme, and that’s not surprising given how the accruals concept is engrained not only in the teaching of accounting, but also in accounting regulations. As a management accountant, I would always encourage the smallest of businesses to think in cash terms – it is easier for business owners with little accounting skills to understand. But I do see one big problem with this scheme in the UK. It centres around what happens when turnover exceeds £77,000. Once this happens, the business must revert to accruals accounting. This would cause much confusion if a business is using accounting software. Normally, accounting software incorporates accruals accounting, but some also support cash accounting in the way described here. I’m not 100% sure, but I would imagine if you set up software to work in one method, it may not be that easy to switch. So even though this cash scheme is easier and optional for small UK business, if they use accounting software (and more and more do) then it is probably best to stick to accruals accounting.
What is activity-based costing?
You may have heard of activity-based costing (or ABC), and here I will try to explain the basics of ABC. First, just a short reminder of the types of cost an organisation may have.
Costs are often classified as fixed or variable. Variable costs change in line with volume/output, and are often called direct costs as they can be attributed easily to a product or service. Fixed costs, often called indirect costs, do not change when business output changes. For example, a fixed cost might be rent of a premises or the salary of a general manager. Such costs cannot be easily traced to a product or service. However, if no effort is made to trace fixed costs to products or services, then the business does not know the full cost. This makes decision-making more difficult.
Traditionally fixed production costs are absorbed into a product by means of a rate per labour hour. For example if overhead was planned at €1 million for a year and 100,000 labour hours were to be worked, then each labour hour would mean a €10 overhead cost. So a product taking two labour hours to make would be charged €20 overhead.
The traditional method can be criticised as over the years more and more overhead has been non-production type overhead and not related to the number of labour hours spent making a product – indeed automation of production in many industries has seen labour being of decreasing importance.
Another more modern way to allocate overhead to products is using ABC. The key in ABC is the word “activity”. In ABC, we can think of an activity as a collection of tasks which are linked in terms of being an overhead cost. For example, customer service, facilities management, quality control and machine setup are all examples of activities. The resources of the activity are determined, which are used to determine the cost of the activity – typically for a year. Then, what causes these resources to increase or decrease is determined. This is called a cost driver. For example, more complaints from customers will increase the resources needed by a customer service department. Using the cost driver, the overhead cost driver rate can be determined. Here’s a brief example:
A design department costs €100,ooo per annum – costs such as salaries, design materials, computer running costs etc. The more designs for new products the greater the cost, this designs are the cost driver. Lets assume there are 5,00o designs per annum, thus the cost driver rate is €20 per design. A product which needs say three designs will thus incur a €60 overhead costs for designs using ABC. If a product has nor designs, then zero overhead is incurred.
In a business, design (as per the above example) may just be one cost driver. Thus, the more resources (activities) consumer by a product the higher the overhead cost. This seems to make a lot of sense, and thus ABC is often used where overhead costs are not easily traced using direct labour hours (or similar) as a means to allocate overhead cost.
With ABC, all direct costs are assigned to the product/service in the same way as traditional costing methods. It is just the allocation of overheads that differs. Typically, ABC considers not only production overhead costs, but many other overhead costs which can be defined within activities.
Related articles
- Two activities for ABC and the appropriate cost drivers for those activities (globalexperts4u.wordpress.com)
- Introducing Overhead Cost (thebangaloresnob.wordpress.com)
Article in MAR – management accounting at Guinness over a century or so
Over the last year or two I have done some research on changes to management accounting practices over a century or so at the Guinness cooperage. This work is now available as a an article in Management Accounting Research see here
CVP in farming
Farmers Market (Photo credit: Macomb Paynes)
As you may know CVP analysis looks at costs, revenues and volumes to determine things like at what output level a business will break even or make a certain profit. This post provides a simple example of the effects of volume on the viability of a business.
Recently, a local authority in Dublin, Ireland announced plans to build a large sewage treatment in the north of the city. As part of this, a vegetable farmer in the area will lose 35 of his 120 or so acres to the plant. I listened to a radio broadcast where the farmer simply said this is too much land to lose and his operation becomes uneconomic.
Let’s think about this briefly in CVP terms. If we assume a stable price for the farmer’s products and stable variable costs (seeds, labour, fuel, fertilisers for example), then it would seem that a loss of about 25% of capacity would reduce the farmer from a profit scenario to a loss one. I am not an agricultural expert, but I would assume that the fixed costs consist largely of the equipment and buildings needed to operate the farm. If the land area is reduced (i.e. capacity is reduced), then the farmer simply does not have enough land left to produce enough revenue to cover these fixed costs and make a profit.
You can read more here.
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