PLANNING AND CONTROL
Instructional goals
The course aims to study the management accounting system and its main tools: Cost Accounting, Budgeting System and Reporting System. The study aims to understand how to use these tools for many cognitive purposes, including analyzing business performance in several respects and, more generally, how to use these tools to support business decisions.
Intended learning outcomes
Knowledge and understanding: The student - by participating in the lectures and practical activities of the course - will acquire full knowledge of the main operating logics and practices of Planning and Control. The acquisition of such knowledge will be ascertained through a final written test.
Applying knowledge and understanding: The student - acquiring the correct tools and method - will be able to interpret, also with respect to concrete cases, the main tools of Planning and Control. The presence of online content in the digital platform of the course and the carrying out of practical exercises will make it possible to verify in real time the skills acquired by the students.
Making judgements: The student, through the use of the methodologies acquired during the course, will be able to collect data and materials to understand the judgments on the main company performance.
The student will also acquire the basics to independently evaluate such data by formulating his own critical judgment on the main company performance.
Communication skills: At the end of the course the student will be able to master, with adequate terminological precision, the economic-business vocabulary of Planning and Control.
The student will develop a solid knowledge of the fundamental aspects of the subject that will allow him to continue to deepen the topics addressed.
Course Contents
Managerial accounting System to support business decisions, Cost Accounting, Budgeting, Reporting
Reference Books
HORNGREN, C,T.; SUNDEM, G.L, Programmazione e controllo, 16/ed., 2016 (testo italiano a cura di Agliati M. e Dattilo A.)
Teaching Methods
Theoretical lessons and pratical application through case studies
Assessment Method
Project work
Final Written exam.
Thesis assignment criteria
Relevance to the topics covered and score higher than 27/30
Week 1 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Managerial accounting: basic framework
- The accounting system: financial accounting and management accounting, main characteristics and differences
- Management accounting process: planning, implementation, control
- Specific tools: cost accounting, budgeting system, reporting system
- Management accounting role in performance evaluation and decision making.
Week 2 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Classified Financial Statement and Ratios Analysis
- Classified Balance Sheet
- Assets, Equity and Liabilities
- Financial soundness analysis and main Ratios
- Liquidity analysis and main Ratios
- Classified Income Statement and main margins: gross profit, operating income, net income
- Profitability analysis: ROE, ROI, ROS,
- Business Case
Week 3 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Cost accounting system and Break even analysis (Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis)
- Basic classification of costs (fixed and variable; direct and indirect; manufacturing, selling, administrative and general)
- Fixed and variable costs behavior (total and per-unit): graph and formula
- Break Even Point (B.E.P.): Business decision making
- What if analysis; production problems, choices and evaluations
- Business case
Week 4 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Direct costing (Simple and Comprehensive) and Contribution Margins
- Direct and indirect costs
- Cost configuration (variable, prime, industrial, full)
- Direct materials, direct labor, manufacturing overhead
- Business decision making: the role of the Gross and Semi-Gross Contribution Margins
- Incremental analysis; make or buy; introduction, substitution, elimination
- Business Case
Week 5 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Full Costing
- Common fixed costs: definition and main issues related
- Allocation to the productions; cost drivers and issues related to the choice
- Industrial full costing and Gross Margin
- Full costing and Operating Income
- Business Case
Week 6 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Full Costing, Responsibility Accounting System, Activity Based Costing
- Responsibility Accounting System
- Responsibility centers: cost, revenue, profit and investment centers
- Logical process: mapping of responsibility centers, allocation of costs and revenues to the responsibility centers, overturning of cost centers, allocation to the productions
- Responsibility margin and Transfer Price
- Activity Based Costing and Activity Based Management
- Business Case
- Exercises and business cases on costs/configuration costs
Week 7 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Business case on Cost accounting
Week 8 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Strategic Planning, Operating Planning and Budgeting System
- Strategic planning and long term decisions; Operating planning and short term decisions
- Budgeting system: logical process of preparing
- Operating budgets and financial budgets
- Operating budgets: sales, production, manufacturing overhead
- Capital Budget
- Financial Budgets: Budgeted Income Statement
- Budgeted Income Statement: form and content
- Logical process of preparing
- Business Cases
Week 9 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Financial Budgets: Budgeted Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet
- Budgeted Cash Flow Statement: form and content
- Operating activities, investing activities and financing activities
- Operating cash flow: direct and indirect process
- Financial needs analysis
- Budgeted Balance Sheet: form and content
- Logical process of preparing
- Business Cases and exercises
Week 10 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Business Case
- Operating Budget and Financial Budgets (Income Statement, Budgeted Cash Flow Statement, Budgeted Balance Sheet)
Week 11 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Reporting activities: introduction - Reporting System: the control phase
- Reporting system: purpose and users
- Reporting system: form and content
- Logical process of preparing
- Budgeted data, final data and Analysis of Variances
- Business Case
Week 12 Contenuto sessioni on line e on campus
- Business Case and/or Company's presentation, students questions