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Thompson Rivers University
Thompson Rivers University

BUSN 5031: Management Accounting

NOTE: For registration please contact Bob Gaglardi School of Business and Economics General Program Inquiries (Email: mba@tru.ca or Tel: 1-877-663-4087).

Students explore the three functions managers must perform within their organizations: planning operations, controlling activities and making decisions. To perform these functions efficiently, managers must collect and interpret appropriate information based on the firms long-term strategy and annual objectives. Topics include an introduction to management accounting; costs and cost behaviours; job or project costing; activity-based costing; cost behaviour and the contribution margin; cost, volume, profit analysis; budgeting; budget variances and performance evaluation; performance measures and the balanced scorecard; and short-term decision analysis.

Learning outcomes

  • Outline the management accountant's role in collecting and analyzing information that aligns the firm's strategy to operational objectives and daily activities.
  • Classify accurately costs into categories such as fixed, variable, product, period, direct and indirect in order to calculate the Cost of Goods Sold.
  • Determine the cost of products in a job (or project) cost environment under both traditional and activity-based methods of allocating overhead costs.
  • Calculate product costs using the weighted average process costing method.
  • Compute job (project) costs using activity-based costing (ABC) and describe the advantages and disadvantages of activity-based management (ABM).
  • Complete a cost-volume-profit analysis at an introductory level, compute break-even points in dollars and units, and compute the operating leverage ratio.
  • Prepare and use operating budgets including cash flow statements.
  • Analyze and interpret budget variances for responsibility reporting.
  • Develop the components of a performance measurement system, particularly a balanced scorecard based on the firm's strategy by identifying appropriate financial and nonfinancial measures.
  • Apply short-term decision analysis to examine differential revenues and differential costs to decide on special orders, outsourcing, equipment purchases, dropping segments, optimal product mix and pricing.

Course topics

  • Module 1: Managerial Accounting and the Business Environment
  • Module 2: Cost terms and Cost behaviour
  • Module 3: Cost Behaviour Analysis and Use
  • Module 4: Cost-Volume-Profit
  • Module 5: Job-Order Costing
  • Module 6: Process Costing
  • Module 7: Activity-Based Costing
  • Module 8: Budgeting
  • Module 9: Standard Costs and Overhead Analysis
  • Module 10: Performance Measurement
  • Module 11: Short-Term Decision Analysis

Required text and materials

Online students are responsible for sourcing and ordering their own textbooks. Please see the list of required textbooks here: https://www.tru.ca/distance/courses/MBA_Textbook_List.pdf.

Please note that publishers may offer several package options that include additional resource material not required in your course. You may purchase a package of your choice as long as it includes the correct author, title and edition listed for your course.

If you have any questions about obtaining the correct textbook, please contact OLMaterials@tru.ca. They will be happy to assist you.

Assessments

Please be aware that should your course have a final exam, you are responsible for the fee to the online proctoring service, ProctorU, or to the in-person approved Testing Centre. Please contact exams@tru.ca with any questions about this.

To successfully complete this course, students must achieve a passing grade of 70% or higher on the overall course, and 50% or higher on the final mandatory examination.

Assignment 1 10%
Assignment 2 12%
Assignment 3 13%
Case 15%
Discussions 10%
Final Exam (mandatory) 40%
Total 100%

Open Learning Faculty Member Information

An Open Learning Faculty Member is available to assist students. Students will receive the necessary contact information at the start of the course.

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