Chapter 18 Managerial Accounting Concepts and Principles 341
OBJECTIVE 1
Describe managerial accounting and the role of managerial accounting in a business.
SYNOPSIS
Managerial accounting provides information to internal users. Managers use this information to control,
plan, and evaluate the performance of the business. Managerial accounting information includes historical
data to evaluate performance and estimated data to assist in making future decisions. Financial accounting
is reported at fixed intervals and provides information to assist external users in making decisions. These
external users include shareholders, creditors, government agencies, and the general public.
Departments in a company can be either line or staff departments. Line departments are directly involved
in providing goods and services to the company’s customers. Managers in these line positions are
responsible for their department’s manufacturing and selling of goods. Staff departments provide services,
assistance, and advice to other departments. The controller is the chief management accountant;
accounting touches all phases of a company’s operations.
A manager uses planning in developing the company’s objectives and then takes actions to implement
these plans. Operational planning develops short-term actions for day-to-day operations. Strategic
planning develops long-term actions to achieve goals involving objectives for the next 5 to 10 years.
Managers direct the day-to-day operations of the business. Monitoring operating results and comparing
these results with the expected results is called controlling. Feedback allows managers to investigate
problems and take remedial actions. It may also lead to adjustment of future plans. Feedback is also used
to improve employees, business processes, and products in a continuous process improvement. Inherent
in all of these processes is decision making in which managers continually decide among alternative
actions.
Key Terms and Definitions
• Continuous Process Improvement – A management approach that is part of the overall total
quality management philosophy. The approach requires all employees to constantly improve
processes of which they are a part or for which they have managerial responsibility.
• Controller – The chief management accountant of a division or other segment of a business.
• Controlling – A phase in the management process that consists of monitoring the operating
results of implemented plans and comparing the actual results with the expected results.
• Decision Making – A component inherent in the other management processes of planning,
directing, controlling, and improving.
• Directing – The process by which managers, given their assigned level of responsibilities, run
day-to-day operations.
• Feedback – Measures provided to operational employees or managers on the performance of
subunits of the organization. These measures are used by employees to adjust a process or a
behavior to achieve goals. See management by exception.
• Financial Accounting – The branch of accounting that is concerned with recording transactions
using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for a business or other economic unit and
with a periodic preparation of various statements from such records.
• Line Department – A unit that is directly involved in the basic objectives of an organization.
• Management by Exception – The philosophy of managing which involves monitoring the
operating results of implemented plans and comparing the expected results with the actual results.