Managerial Accounting, 14th Edition

Book Preface

New to the Fourteenth Edition

Faculty feedback helps us continue to improve Managerial Accounting. In response to reviewer suggestions, the authors have made the following changes to the text:

• A NEW Applying Excel feature has been added to Chapters 2–13. Applying Excel gives students the opportunity to practice using Excel formulas to build their own worksheets. They are then asked a series of “what if” questions, all of which illustrate the relationship among various pieces of accounting data. The Applying Excel feature links directly to the concepts introduced in the chapter, providing students with an invaluable opportunity to apply what they have learned using a software they will use throughout their careers, whether they become an accountant or not.
• Chapter 1 has been completely overhauled to help all business students better understand why managerial accounting is relevant to their future careers.
• Chapter 2 has been extensively rewritten to include coverage of mixed costs and contribution format income statements. The redundant coverage of the schedule of cost of goods manufactured has been eliminated so that it is now only covered in the Job-Order Costing chapter. The comparison of financial and managerial accounting has been moved to Chapter 1.
• Chapter 14 This chapter has been completely overhauled to simplify the process of creating a statement of cash flows.
• New In Business boxes have been added throughout to provide relevant and updated real-world examples for use in classroom discussion and to support student understanding of key concepts as they read through a chapter.
• The end-of-chapter practice material has been updated throughout.

Chapter 1
This chapter has been completely rewritten to better motivate all business students to take an interest in managerial accounting and to appreciate its relevance to their future careers. The new version of Chapter 1 answers three questions: (1) What is Managerial Accounting? (2) Why Does Managerial Accounting Matter to Your Career? and (3) What Skills Do Managers Need to Succeed? It also retains coverage of two topics important to all managers: (1) ethics in business and (2) corporate social responsibility.

Chapter 2
This chapter has been completely revised to achieve three objectives. First, we eliminated redundant coverage of the schedule of cost of goods manufactured, which in previous editions was covered in Chapter 2 as well as the Job-Order Costing chapter. Now this topic is covered only once in the Job-Order Costing chapter using normal costing principles. Second, we moved the coverage of mixed costs, scattergraph plots, and the highlow method from the Cost Behavior chapter to Chapter 2. This enables instructors to introduce cost estimation earlier in the course. The least-squares regression appendix has also been moved from the Cost Behavior chapter to Chapter 2. Third, we moved coverage of traditional and contribution format income statements for merchandising companies from the Cost Behavior chapter to Chapter 2. This enables instructors to introduce contribution format income statements earlier in the course. Using merchandising companies as the initial easily understood (student-friendly) introduction to this topic. The more complex arena of manufacturing cost accounting is covered in later chapters such as the Job-Order Costing and Variable Costing chapters. The Cost Behavior chapter has been completely eliminated given that its key learning objectives have been transferred to Chapter 2. The appendix dealing with further classification of labor costs has been moved from Chapter 2 to the Job-Order Costing chapter.

Chapter 3
In this chapter, we adjusted the learning objectives to provide a more logical progression from computing an overhead rate (LO1), to applying overhead cost to jobs (LO2), and then to computing a job cost (LO3). We also added a cost formula approach to computing predetermined overhead rates. We were able to do this because the high-low method is now covered in Chapter 2. We deleted what were formerly learning objectives 1 and 2 from the prior edition of the book and incorporated an exhibit formerly from Chapter 2 that provides a conceptual overview of manufacturing cost flows.

Chapter 6
The coverage of variable and absorption costing has been reorganized so that variable costing is discussed first, followed by absorption costing. Discussing variable costing first (rather than absorption costing) is consistent with the title of the chapter, which focuses on variable costing as a tool for management. The coverage of segmented income statements has been moved from Chapter 12 in the prior edition of the book to this chapter. The common theme that now joins together the chapter’s two main topics is the contribution format income statement. The chapter now demonstrates how the contribution format is used for Variable Costing income statements and how it can be used for segmented income statements.

Chapter 10
This chapter’s general model for standard cost variance analysis has been reorganized to more clearly integrate with the variance analysis framework introduced in the prior chapter. The prior chapter introduces a framework for computing activity and spending variances within organizations that do not use standard costing. The revised general model in this chapter extends the framework from the prior chapter and explains how it can be used to break down spending variances into quantity and price variances.

Chapter 11
This chapter has been renamed and reorganized. The new title is Performance Measurement in Decentralized Organizations. It is now organized in three main sections. The first section discusses financial performance measures for investment centers. The second section discusses nonfinancial operating performance measures. The third section explains how the balanced scorecard framework can be used to pull together financial and nonfinancial measures into one strategy-driven performance measurement system. Also, the coverage of segmented income statements was moved to an earlier chapter.

Chapter 12
The title of this chapter has been changed from Relevant Costs for Decision Making to Differential Analysis: The Key to Decision Making. This change acknowledges that revenues as well as costs can be relevant to decisions. We have also improved the discussion related to utilization of a constrained resource. The prior edition of the book had one learning objective related to this topic, whereas now we break down the discussion of this topic into two learning objectives. The first learning objective focuses on determining the most profitable use of a constraining resource, and the second learning objective focuses on calculating the value of obtaining more of the constrained resource. We expanded the discussion related to the latter learning objective.

Chapter 14
The chapter has been rewritten to simplify the process of preparing a statement of cash flows. We have added Exhibit 14–4, which succinctly summarizes the main points that students need to understand to prepare a statement of cash flows and revised Exhibit 14–1 so that it provides a more student-friendly definition of operating, investing, and financing activities than in previous editions. We have replaced the worksheet method with an approach that students can use to more efficiently solve end-of-chapter problems and also replaced the two walkthroughs of the Nordstrom example (simplified and fullfledged) with one walkthrough. We have also expanded the discussion related to interpreting the statement of cash flows.