Accounting Flashcards
outline formula for breakeven, margin of safety and margin of safety percentage
what are the benefits of budgeting and what are the order of budgets
Benefits of Budgeting
1. Help strategic planning
2. Help performance evaluation
3. Set plans in financial terms
4. Managers made responsible
5. Encourage cooperation and coordination
Order of budgets:
- Sales
- Production (number of units that need to be produced to meet sales needs and provide for the desired end inventory)
- Direct Materials (amount of raw materials to fulfil production budget)
- Direct Labour (amount of labour hours required)
- Cash (shows expected cash inflows and outflows)
what are the actions to be taken in short or long term surplus or deficits
Short-term surplus
- Pay creditors early for discounts
- Try increase sales through debtors & stocks
- Short term investments
Short term deficit
- Increase creditors (accounts payable)
- Reduce debtors (accounts receivable)
- Arrange an overdraft
Long term surplus
- Reduce/update fixed assets
- Expand
- Make long term investments
Long-term deficit
- Raise long term finance
- Consider shutdown/disinvestment options
outline uses of cash budget
- Cash budgets allow managers to plan and find out immediately if they have the funds to carry out their plans
- The firm can negotiate for a loan / credit in advance for periods when the profit is potentially running low - it is better to apply for a loan in advance than at the last minute
- The firm can plan for alternative sources of finance in advance (e.g liquidation of assets or issuing of shares)
- If there is a surplus then you can plan to use it for another use
how do you calculate absorption costing?
what are the advantages of activity based costing?
- Does not overcharge on high labour hours and vice versa
- Focuses attention on the nature of cost behaviour
- Recognises costs aries from complexity and diversity of operations
- Takes product costing beyond traditional factory floor methods
- Can help us budget for planned activity levels and plan our machine / labour requirements
How do you rectify limitng factors?
Invest in R&D
Work with suppliers
Look for other suppliers
Can you improve delivery of materials
Can you improve reliability of the materials, which again needs coordination with the supplier
Looking internally, can you you reduce wastage materials by improved training of labour
Can you reduce wastage of materials by using better machinery?
Could you possibly change the design of the product, or use alternative materials
A55
what are the reasons for material price and usage variance
Reasons for a material price variance include:
* Purchase of better (if favourable) or poorer (if unfavourable) quality materials
* Bulk buying leads to discounts
* Price changes for the material
* Inflation rates
Reasons for material usage variance:
* Purchase of better (if favourable) or poorer (if unfavourable) quality materials
* High / poor skilled labour
* Modern / out of date machinery
* Theft / damage
* Stricter quality control (more used)
give reasons for labour price and efficiency variance
outline reasons for sales price and volume variance
outline formula for internal rate of return
if discount rate is higher than IRR then it is not a good investment
outline advantages and disadvantages of payback method
Advantages
- Quick simple calculation
- Easily understood concept
Disadvantages
- Ignores any cash flows after the payback period
- Ignores time value of money
outline advantages and disadvantages of NPV
Advantages:
- Correctly accounts for the time value of money
- Uses cash flows, not profit
- Absolute measure
Disadvantages
- Need to estimate cost of capital
- Assume all cash flows are at the end of the year
- Can be complex
outline advantages and disadvantages of IRR
Advantages:
- Readily understood concept of % return
- Does not require an exact cost of capital
- Uses the time value of money
Disadvantages
- Difficult calculation
- Cannot cope with changing discount factors
- Complex and time consuming
what is on the debit and credit side of a trial balance
Overall a business spends money, which is entered on the debit side, when:
* Increasing assets (e.g buying new van)
* Increasing expenses (e.g paying for advertising)
* Decreasing liabilities (e.g paying interest on loans)
Overall a business receives money, which is entered on the credit side, when:
* Decrease assets (e.g liquidation of PP&E)
* Increase in liabilities (e.g raising a loan / debentures)
* Increasing sales (e.g selling inventory)
* Increase in capital (e.g funds contributed by the owner)