Cases on management accounting in medicine for masters. How to automate a management accounting system. Factors for successful implementation. Business seminar answers questions

Cases are complex tasks developed based on real business situations. After downloading the cases, you must examine the situation, understand the essence of the problems, propose possible solutions and choose the best one. Our cases are based on real factual material or are close to a real situation.

Each case has the following structure:

1. Initial data for solving a problem, taken from real practice or close to the real situation. Source data is presented in Excel in the form of downloads from 1C accounting registers, or disparate information collected from various divisions of the organization - reports from the production service, commercial service, technical service reports or statistical data on the general economic environment. Your task is to learn to compare this disparate information, consolidate it and make a decision based on a systematic analysis of this information.
2. Each case includes tasks from various disciplines - you need to know accounting according to Russian standards, accounting according to IFRS, financial analysis, investment analysis, enterprise economics, financial management in order to solve the problem entirely.
3. Each case includes calculation tables that you will need to fill out as you solve the problem. These tables will give you a roadmap and show you which direction to take. For example, you will have a blank balance sheet (statement of financial position) that needs to be completed. Or there will be a table with coefficients that need to be calculated.
4. Of course, each case includes answers. Detailed answers with justification for making a decision - why it is necessary to do this and not otherwise. The answers include fully completed calculation tables with reporting prepared on the basis of downloads from 1C and financial ratios calculated on the basis of these reporting.

	The case presents the following situation. IFRS reporting was prepared for your company by one of the auditing companies. This service seemed expensive to the management of the enterprise and it was decided to shift this task onto your shoulders. Now, on your own, you will need to understand the historical data and IFRS reports that the audit company left behind, compare them with the data for the reporting period and understand which amendments need to be repeated and which ones should be recalculated. The task includes restatement of the value of fixed assets based on an independent valuation report, recognition of leases, calculation of an allowance for doubtful debts, recovery of intangible assets from expenses and restatement of deferred taxes.
	You are the CFO of a small company and your shareholders want to expand the business. They think it’s better to sell a minority stake to a partner and expand the business with this money, take out a loan or purchase equipment on lease. However, financial statements for the last year are not yet ready. The production service provided a report in which, to expand the business, you can use several alternative options for purchasing equipment, the terms of purchase of which are different. Several banks offer you a loan on different terms, and in order to sell a share to a partner, you need to understand whether he gives a fair market price for this share or not.
	Each program on our website contains a mini-case After downloading the program, you receive the “Account Analysis” report from 1C, which is close to the real situation. Using the data from this report, you can test the program and hone your financial analysis skills. For example, by downloading the “Cost Analysis and Optimization” program, you get a practical example on which you can track the behavior of costs in situations close to reality - identify costs that are not related to the business, identify fixed costs that have increased or decreased. Using a practical example, you will learn how to conduct analysis and provide management with the necessary information.

Our cases meet all the criteria voiced by Jamie Anderson, a professor of strategic management in the Netherlands.

Clients often give different meanings to the concept of “Management Accounting”, but, in any case, management accounting is the process of collecting, checking and analyzing information that is carried out for the purpose of managing a business.

There are no universal solutions for management accounting. Each company is individual and has its own strategic goals and objectives. The “filling” of the management accounting system depends on them.

Why is management accounting needed?

Management accounting is vital for every organization. Its main goal is to provide executives and managers with the necessary information to make effective management decisions.

High-quality management accounting makes it possible to obtain up-to-date, real information about the true value of the company, allows you to assess the financial stability of the company, determine the break-even point and other important indicators necessary for timely and correct management decisions. In our unstable times, this is very important and is a competitive advantage of the company.

Management accounting must meet two basic requirements:

1. Provide the necessary information as quickly as possible, reflect the business situation in the “here and now” mode. This is especially important in times of crisis.
2. Have a set of convenient tools for analysis. Accounting should provide answers to the questions: “what happened?”, “why did this happen?” In which direction to move next will be your further management decision.

Management Accounting Users

1. Owners
2. CEO
3. Top management of the company

Setting up (refinement) of management accounting

As part of this service you will receive:

1. Competitive advantage. Timely information for making smart management decisions.
2. Full-fledged management accounting that meets your strategic goals and objectives
3. Possibility of automating accounting within the framework of the 1 C program.
4. Training your employees to work correctly in the accounting program
5. You will receive a complete, correct and timely financial picture of your business
6. Report

The report includes:

1. Description of business processes of management accounting, job descriptions of persons involved in management accounting
2. Developed budget classifier
3. Developed forms of primary documents required for use
4. Instructions for preparing reporting forms

Stages of setting up (refining) management accounting

The development, implementation and automation of management accounting is carried out in several stages. In each specific company, the program is compiled individually. Here is a “sample” work plan.

Stage 1.	Preparatory At this stage it is carried out Analysis of the enterprise’s activities, including: Analysis of business processes occurring in the company; Diagnostics and identification of all key points that form management accounting data. We collect information and agree with the client on the tasks that he wants to solve using management accounting.
Stage 2.	Development of a management accounting system: Development of budgeting methodology, budget classifier and basic universal forms of management reporting; Description of the job responsibilities of employees responsible for entering data into reporting forms; Coordination of the developed system with the client; Instructions for drawing up all reporting forms, analysis, plan-fact.
Stage 3.	Automation of the management accounting system using software: Writing technical specifications for a programmer; Writing reports by a programmer and implementing a ready-made solution (without taking into account the cost of the programmer); Setting up the accounting program is carried out jointly with your programmer or a programmer proposed by us who has previously performed similar tasks.
Stage 4.	Consulting on the implementation of a management accounting system.

Cost of services

In general, the cost of the service and the timing of the work are influenced by:

1. Scale of your business:
   1. turnover, rub./year
   2. organizational structure: number of business areas: one or more, number of branches
   3. legal structure: the number of ALL legal entities serving your company
2. Problems that you want to solve using management accounting.
3. Current level of automation.
4. Your location. If your location is not Moscow, the price will include overhead costs.

Terms of work

On average, the completion time for work takes from 2 to 4 months.

(250 )

ID: 172926
Upload date: 08 September 2016
Salesman: pianist12 ( Write if you have any questions)

Kind of work: Tasks
File formats: Microsoft Word
Passed at the educational institution:******* Unknown

Description:
Task 1 on the topic “Direct costing system”. Cost-volume-profit ratio analysis.
Goal: based on analysis, be able to make informed decisions on the advisability of increasing or decreasing costs, production volumes, prices for manufactured products, and reflect the obtained data in financial reporting forms.
The following data per unit is available: price - 500 rubles. (100%); variable costs – 300 rub. (60%); marginal profit – 200 rub. (40%); fixed expenses - 70,000 rubles.
The company produces 400 units. products per month. The production department suggests replacing some components with new ones. This will entail an increase in variable costs by 20 monetary units. per unit of production. However, improving the model can increase the demand for these products, and therefore increase their production volume to 450 units.
Will these innovations be justified?

Task 2 on the topic “Organization of accounting for certain types of costs.”
Goal: to be able to correctly evaluate inventory items when they are disposed of, distribute overhead costs and transportation and procurement costs, draw up and calculate estimates, and determine the optimal quantity of the order size.

Determine the optimal order quantity
Indicators Order size (units)
100 200 300 400 500 600 800 1000
1. Average stock in units (1/2 order)
2. Number of purchase orders
3. Annual inventory holding cost
4. Annual cost of order fulfillment
5. Total relevant costs

Additional data: the annual need for raw materials forming this reserve is 40,000 units; storage cost of 1 unit. stock - 600 rubles; costs for one delivery order (stationery, postal, telegraphic) - 1200 rubles.

Task 3 is presented using the example of a fictitious organization – OJSC “Dream”. The solution to the proposed problem requires knowledge in the field of marginal accounting.
When solving a problem, students must not only use the studied material and techniques, but also be able to analyze the results obtained to make the right management decision.
All amounts in the work are conditional and are given for 4 cases.

The OJSC Mechta company produces products A and B.
The estimate for the coming period is as follows:

Parameter I
case II
case III case IV case
Sales price of product A (rub.)
10
15
15
8
Selling price
products B (rub.)
5
10
5
5
Share (coefficient) of marginal income (%) for A
40
60
40
60
Share (coefficient) of marginal income (%) for B
60
40
60
40

Complex fixed costs in the amount of CU 100,000. distributed by the company among products in proportion to the number of sales.
The same number of sales of products A and B are planned, but a profit from the sale of product A is expected to be 14,000 USD. and loss from the sale of product B in the amount of CU 2,000.
The company decides to make changes to its operations and considers three options.
1. It is expected that the price of product B will be increased by 25%. This takes into account that price elasticity in a given price range is the same. In other words, the elasticity of demand is unit.
2. It is expected to make changes to the technological process in which fixed costs will be reduced by 12.5%, but variable costs will increase by 10% for each product.
3. The option of combining the first and second sentences is being considered.
Your task is to give recommendations on the choice of the proposed options and explain the decisions made

If you are a manager, then you will probably be familiar with the situation when important decisions have to be made by eye or based on your own instincts only because obtaining the necessary information takes too much time. The information that you do manage to obtain is often too voluminous and it is quite difficult to select what you need from it. In addition, it is not always possible to be sure of the reliability of the data provided.

Moreover, the most interesting thing is that your company may already have a management accounting system, but it is often very complex and is used ineffectively. As R. Ackoff noted: “In companies with existing information systems, most managers suffer from an excess of inadequate information, and not from a lack of necessary information.”

Management Accounting. Are you okay with this?

In order for management information to be used effectively, it must meet certain specific criteria. What are these characteristics?

Let's look at them in order.

1. Brevity.
- Information must be clear and not contain anything superfluous.
2. Accuracy.
- The user must be sure that the information does not contain errors or omissions.
- Information must be free from any manipulation.
3. Efficiency.
- Information must be ready when it is needed.
4. Comparability.
- Information should be comparable over time and across departments/divisions.
5. Expediency.
- Information must be suitable for the purpose for which it is prepared.
6. Profitability.
- Preparing information should not cost more than the benefits from its use.
7. Untendentious.
- Information must be prepared and presented in such a way that it is not biased.
8. Addressability.
- Information must be communicated to the responsible person; confidentiality must be maintained.

Check yourself to see how well your management reports meet all these requirements. If your information does not meet at least three of the listed criteria, this indicates that the management accounting system needs to be reorganized.

Of course, for each enterprise in its specific situation, only some of the listed factors are of greatest relevance, however, practice shows that as the priority problems are satisfied, the remaining ones, if they are not addressed in a timely manner, cause more and more inconvenience over time. Thus, if you approach the issue of optimizing the management accounting system in a comprehensive manner, this will ultimately save a lot of time and money.

It is worth noting that the process of management accounting at an enterprise includes two main components:

• organizing the process of collecting and transmitting information, i.e. answers to the questions: who collects, groups and evaluates data; who prepares reports and within what time frame, etc.;
• reporting procedure (use of various methods for grouping and evaluating management information).

Today we will talk only about the first of them - how to implement (or reorganize) a management accounting system in a company. What management reports are, what financial technologies are used to compile them and how to use them correctly is the topic of the next article.

Step one. Diagnostics.

Before implementing management accounting, determine the goals and objectives for which the system is being implemented. Decide for yourself quite clearly: what do you want to see as the final result.

Then take a “working day photograph” of the processes of receiving and processing information, i.e. determine how management accounting is currently carried out at your enterprise. Make a description of business processes, draw organizational and financial structures, specify the number of divisions and what functional responsibilities are assigned to each of them. Find out how the regulations for data transfer occur: who, in what time frame, in what volumes and to whom should provide information.

For example, the process of preparing management reporting can be represented as the following sequence of actions:

• data sources are identified and the necessary information is collected;
• information is grouped according to homogeneous characteristics - if accounting is kept only in monetary terms - according to management accounting accounts, if not, then according to management accounting registers (for example, management functions, support functions, etc.);
• criteria for evaluation are selected and data are evaluated (according to IFRS, for example, resources can be evaluated in several ways: at actual, amortized and current cost);
• Based on the information received, a report is compiled.

However, questions often arise here: is outsourcing necessary at all? Is it worth hiring consulting companies to carry out this work, or can you still get by with internal resources?

Each of these approaches has its own advantages and disadvantages and ultimately it is up to you which choice to make. Maybe I will express an untypical point of view, but in my opinion, the best option is to hire consultants so that they can train your employees how to do this correctly. Moreover, as you know, the best way to learn is to learn by example, so it is advisable that consultants, together with your employees, describe several business processes at your enterprise and prepare several regulations.

After that, compare the existing management accounting system with the results that you would like to see in the end, and you can easily determine where your weakest points are and what needs to be changed to achieve the desired effect.

Carrying out these procedures will allow you to determine how far you are from the desired result and what needs to be done to achieve it.

Step two. Carrying out transformations.

Document all necessary changes: write down regulations indicating the volume and timing of the provision of information and defining those responsible and the measures of responsibility in each department for the preparation of information. In addition, appoint someone responsible for managing the entire management accounting system (senior manager for all sectors + general management).

Create a network schedule detailing all required activities and the deadlines by which they must be completed.

Prepare a detailed budget for internal and external expenses.

Start executing the plan - start with orders and verbal direction from senior leaders.

Monitor and control the progress of work, making changes if necessary.

A few words about automation of the management accounting system.

According to research by PriceWaterhouseCoopers experts, Russian enterprises have recently been spending an increasing amount of money on the implementation of enterprise management systems.

But such systems require considerable investment, and the costs will not be one-time - consulting usually costs several times more money than the cost of the system itself. For example, the cost of training one person for systems like SAP R3 or Baan is measured in thousands of dollars.

In what cases is it worth automating management accounting and when can you do without it? In small enterprises (up to 500 people), it is quite possible to do without it or develop your own software, but for larger enterprises it is better to purchase ready-made products.

At the moment, there is a good selection of information systems, both imported and domestic, to suit every taste and income. However, it is advisable that the information system that you plan to install at your place has already been successfully implemented in an enterprise with a profile similar to yours. This way you will avoid problems with long-term system development.

When choosing a platform, it is also worth considering that over time the volumes of requested information will increase (according to Moore’s law, its amount doubles every 18 months), and therefore the capabilities of the system must be considered in perspective, and not just within the current moment. Otherwise, it may happen that a system that currently completely satisfies you with its capabilities may, by the time of implementation, hopelessly lag behind the requirements of the time.

The system implementation process usually takes from 6 to 18 months, depending on the size of the enterprise and the complexity of the tasks, but in some cases longer periods may be required. This is mainly due to adapting the system to the needs of the enterprise.

A practical example of implementing a management accounting system at an enterprise.

As an illustration of all of the above, let us consider the process of reorganizing the management accounting system at the industrial enterprise "N" with an extensive branch structure, which employs about 5.5 thousand people.

Problematic situation.

We have already said that different types of information are needed at different levels of management. A characteristic feature of the enterprise under consideration is that, firstly, information is required at different levels of management (site, branch, central office), and secondly, for different functional divisions of the enterprise (for example, financial department, sales department, economic department).

The enterprise has an extensive branch network and therefore the process of preparing information was carried out according to the following scheme: after receiving instructions from management about the volume and type of necessary information, a document layout was drawn up and sent to the branches. In turn, the branches sent this form to the areas where it was filled out. Then the completed reports from the sections were summarized in the branches and transferred to the central office, where their final processing took place. If the form of information presentation did not completely suit its users, then the whole process was repeated again.

Considering the large number of different departments and services that regularly requested such information, the workload on the site staff was enormous, and the deadlines for preparing reports and filling out all these documents were often missed. It is worth noting that often the information requested by different departments contained common data, only in different combinations. This, by the way, is typical for many large holding-type structures.

Often, in order to reduce the time for preparing information, data was transmitted promptly by telephone, which affected the reliability of the information.

Thus, the main problem of accounting for the enterprise in question was the lack of timely and accurate information from the management about the state of affairs due to the too long duration of the data collection and processing process.

What to do?

After diagnosing the state of management accounting at the enterprise and analyzing the information being prepared, the transformation team came to the conclusion that in the current situation the most optimal solution would be the daily creation of a database of all data in electronic form, with the ability for users to independently generate all the necessary reports. At that time, the branches already had software developed in-house by the departments, but it was of different types everywhere and did not meet the ever-increasing requirements. Taking into account the scale of the enterprise and the volume of tasks performed, it was decided to implement a corporate information system. One of the Russian platforms was taken as the basis (I will not say which one, because, according to many experts, it was not the best choice).

In addition, enterprise management often requests information that contains the same data, but in different combinations, so different reporting forms are regularly required. Therefore, it was decided to refine the software, as a result of which users had the opportunity to independently create reports within the information system (i.e. with automatic data processing) according to the designer principle.

Implementation of a management accounting system.

The implementation of the system took about a year in total, and the finalization of the software for individual modules continued for about two more years. In the process of implementing the project, the transformation team encountered certain problems, among which it is worth highlighting the actual implementation problems (problems associated with the implementation of changes) and organizational and personnel problems.

In addition, work on the implementation of a corporate information system made it possible to identify shortcomings in the organization of accounting. This highlighted some problems that were previously explained by the shortcomings of manual data processing, but in fact were associated with violations of regulations regarding the timing of information transfer. For example, for domestic enterprises, a fairly typical situation is when the reporting data of the sales and accounting departments do not coincide - sales reports on the funds received, but they are not yet shown in the financial statements.

The same situation occurred in this example, and it had a fairly strong impact on the reliability of information about the implementation. The reason for this was the untimely reflection by the accounting department of received funds (payment orders and bills) in the program database and the delay in closing the balance sheet for the enterprise as a whole.

Problems associated with implementing changes.

One of the first problems that the transformation team faced was the unification of the form for providing initial information. We have already said that the software that existed at the time of implementation in the divisions of the enterprise was of different types; accordingly, each of them had its own requirements for the database format (i.e., a different font was used, the order of numbers, abbreviations in headings, etc. .). Therefore, the first thing that had to be done was to bring all the source data to a single “denominator”, unifying them.

It also soon became clear that a heterogeneous approach to sorting information was used - different departments used different criteria, which also affected the reliability of the generated data. For example, a number of departments incorrectly classified consumers according to their classification as OKONKH and OKPO, which led to inconsistencies in information in different reports. As a result, a “Consumer Passport” was developed, containing in a common database all the necessary data on product consumers.

It is also worth noting that during the transition to new software, the workload on employees increased due to the need to simultaneously maintain the old and new databases.

At the first stage of implementing the information system, overlapping data in different reports was often contradictory, and therefore it was necessary to regularly reconcile them. Considering the large volumes of information being processed, the process of setting up a regular flow of reliable data took quite a long time - about 12 months.

The consequence of such a long implementation was that the company’s employees did not use the capabilities of the information system for a long time, preferring old methods that were more familiar (no need to figure out how to use the system) and reliable (no need to double-check the data). And this despite the fact that such methods took much more time!

Organizational and personnel problems.

In addition to issues related to the implementation of changes, the transformation team had to face a number of organizational and personnel problems. Thus, the lack of qualified IT personnel in the company’s divisions had a significant impact on the timing of the system’s launch, which, in principle, is a fairly standard problem for domestic enterprises.

The staff also experienced certain difficulties in mastering computer technology and software. Despite the fact that centralized training of employees in communication skills with the information system was carried out, a number of employees turned out to be unprepared to master new work methods.

Some time after the system was implemented, another problem arose. After the information system began to function in working mode, it became possible to automatically process information and there was no longer a need for some of the personnel who regularly prepared these reports on paper. The question arose: what to do with people? For quite objective reasons, rotation and reduction of personnel during transformations is inevitable and practically no serious innovation can be accomplished without this process. Therefore, you need to be prepared for this in advance.

The result obtained.

What happened in the end? It was possible to reduce the efficiency of preparing information by more than 3 times and increase its reliability. Thus, if previously data was provided mainly in aggregate, without decoding into components, now it has become easy to check each operation, and therefore it has become almost impossible to hide or distort information. At the moment, each user of the central office has the opportunity to independently generate the data he needs without requesting it from other departments (while access control ensures the required degree of security). This also made it possible to reduce the burden on the lower levels of management of the enterprise in terms of preparing reporting information and allowed them to devote more time to fulfilling their direct production responsibilities.