Management Accounting Assignment - Report & literature review

Unit Learning Outcomes covered in this assessment - The purpose of this assignment is to assess the following Learning Outcomes:

• Produce business reports which present critical analysis and evaluation of financial solutions to management issues in writing.
• Apply knowledge to review and analyse problems and generate adaptable, flexible, and ethical approaches to problem solving and decision making.

Assignment Description - This assessment includes two parts

Part I - Part I Report

Greenery Pty Ltd offers a range of commercial landscaping services throughout Australia. The company's profits have declined over the past year, and in an attempt to restructure the company managing director recruited a management accountant (Mary Ellen). Mary was instructed to review the currently applied costing system and develop cost estimates that can be used to prepare competitive bids on jobs and present a report to the next Board meeting. Mary was also informed to prepare and submit a bid on a landscaping project consisting of 100,000 square metres along with the report.

Having studied the costing system, Mary came to know that the company has been using the following cost estimates for each 500 square metres of landscaping:

Mary realised that company has used a common method of estimating an overhead rate per direct labour hour because overhead costs cannot be traced directly to landscaping. The estimate of $ 19 per direct labour hour was based on the total actual overhead costs that were incurred, and total direct labour hours spent during the past 12 months, as given in the Table 1.

Table 1

Mary too believes that total monthly direct labour hours influence overhead costs, and decided to carry out a regression analysis of overhead (OH) on total direct labour hours (DLH).

Required: Assume you are the management accountant (Mary Ellan) and write a report to the company board of directors explaining how the objectivity and accuracy of cost estimation can be improved by using statistical techniques such as regression analysis.

Report should incorporate the following sections.

Cover page

Table of contents

Executive summary

1. Introduction

2. Q1. Overhead cost equation developed based on regression results. (Perform regression analysis on Excel by using above data, and develop overhead cost equation for the Greenery Pty Ltd.) (Regression analysis results should be attached to the reports as an appendix).

3. Q2. Estimate of the total cost for 500 square metres of landscaping. (Calculate total cost for 500 square metres of landscaping using the overhead formula that was derived from the regression analysis).

4. Q3. Explain why the overhead rate calculated from the regression analysis is different from preliminary estimate of $ 19 per direct labour hour.

5. Q4. Calculate and include a bid on a landscaping project consisting of 100 000 square metres. Mary estimates that 20% of the direct labour hours required for the project will be on overtime.

6. Q5. Explain as to how Greenery Pty Ltd rely on the overhead formula derived from the regression analysis as the basis for the variable overhead component of its cost estimate.

7. Recommendations and Conclusion

8. Reference list (at least 2 references must be cited)

9. Appendices.

Part II Literature Review -

"Traditional costing systems use production volume as the cost driver. Costs are classified as fixed or variable relative to the level of production. However, many businesses are finding that an increasing share of their costs no longer vary directly with the volume of production" (Langfield-Smith, K., Thorne, H., Smith, D., & Hilton, R. 2015, p85).

Required: With reference to the above statement critically review the current literature under the following headings.

1. The key components of traditional costing systems, and how do contemporary cost management systems differ from traditional costing system.

2. Define and critically analyse terms of fixed and variable costs and provide examples at least from two business organizations (one service & one manufacturing).

3. Discuss the importance of identifying the cost drivers and compare and contrast cost drivers used in traditional costing system and contemporary management accounting systems.

Report should include the following sections of Table of contents, Executive summary, Review on 1,2 and 3 above, Conclusion and Reference list (at least 5 references must be cited (Text books and journal articles).

Attachment:- Assignment File.rar