Cost classification and cost behaviour
What management accounting is for, how costs are classified, and how to separate fixed and variable elements.
Free to enrol
Mai Studies Original · Accounting & Finance
ACCA Study Support: Management Accounting (MA)
A complete Mai Studies study-support programme for learners preparing for the ACCA Applied Knowledge paper Management Accounting. Every module contains original written notes with worked numerical examples, a tutor-voice classroom transcript, a practical activity with a worked solution, a mock test with explained answers and a marked written assignment. Mai Studies is an independent provider: it is not ACCA, is not an ACCA Approved Learning Partner, and this programme carries no exam credit or exemption.
10 weeks 60 guided hours Foundation
No course fee is charged for current published programmes.
What you will achieve
- Classify costs by behaviour, function and traceability
- Apply absorption and marginal costing and reconcile the profit difference
- Cost products using job, batch, process and service costing
- Prepare functional and cash budgets from stated assumptions
- Calculate and interpret sales, material, labour and overhead variances
- Apply relevant costing and cost-volume-profit analysis to short-term decisions
- Measure performance using financial and non-financial indicators
Entry guidance
- — Confident with basic arithmetic and percentages
- — No prior accounting study required
- — Around six study hours each week
Original Mai Studies learning material. This is a professional completion programme, not a regulated qualification or university accreditation.
Programme syllabus
Eight applied modules
4h
Materials, labour and overhead costing
Inventory valuation, labour cost and efficiency, and absorbing overheads into products.
Absorption and marginal costing
Two ways of treating fixed production overhead, and why reported profit differs between them.
Costing methods: job, batch, process and service
Choosing a costing method to suit the production environment, including losses and work in progress.
Budgeting and cash forecasting
Purpose of budgets, functional budgets, cash budgets and behavioural effects of budgeting.
Standard costing and variance analysis
Setting standards, flexing a budget, and calculating and interpreting the main variances.
Short-term decision making
Relevant costs, cost-volume-profit analysis, limiting factors and make-or-buy decisions.
Performance measurement
Financial ratios, non-financial indicators, divisional measures and the risks of measuring the wrong thing.