管理会计专业术语词汇

A

Absorption costing A product-costing method that assigns all manufacturing costs to a product: direct materials, direct labor, variable overhead, and fixed overhead.

Absorption-costing (full-costing) income Income computed using a

functionally-based statement. Cost of goods sold includes all variable manufacturing costs and a portion of fixed factory overhead.

Accounting rate of return The rate of return obtained by dividing the average accounting net income by the original investment (or by average investment). Activity A basic unit of work performed within an organization. It also can be defined as an aggregation of actions within an organization useful to managers for purposes of planning, controlling, and decision making.

Activity analysis The process of identifying, describing, and evaluating the activities an organization performs. Activity attributes Nonfinancial and financial information items that describe individual activities.

Activity budgeting The process of estimating the demand for each

activity’s output and assessing the cost of resources required to produce this output.

Activity capacity The number of times an activity can be performed. Activity dictionary A list of activities described by specific attributes such as name, definition, classification as primary or secondary, and activity driver.

Activity drivers Factors that measure the consumption of activities by products

and other cost objects.

Activity elimination The process of eliminating nonvalue-added activities. Activity flexible budget The prediction of what activity costs will be as activity usage changes.

Activity inputs The resources consumed by an activity in producing its output (they are the factors that enable the activity to be performed).

Administrative costs All costs associated with the general administration of the organization that cannot be reasonably assigned to either marketing or production.

Advance pricing agreements (APAs) Agreements between the Internal Revenue Service and a taxpayer on the acceptability of a transfer price. The agreement is private and is binding on both parties for a specified period of time.

Aesthetics A quality attribute that is concerned with the appearance of tangible products (for example, style and beauty) as well as the appearance of the facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials associated with services.

Allocation Assignment of indirect costs to cost objects.

Annuity A series of future cash flows. Applied overhead Overhead assigned to production using predetermined rates.

Appraisal costs Costs incurred to determine whether products and services are conforming to requirements. B

Balanced Scorecard (See Strategicbased responsibility accounting system.)

Base period A prior period used to

set the benchmark for measuring productivity

changes.

Batch-level activities Activities that are performed each time a batch is produced.

Benchmarking An approach that uses best practices as the standard for evaluating activity performance. Best-fitting line The line that fits a set of data points the best in the sense that the sum of the squared deviations of the data points from the line is the smallest.

Binding constraints Constraints whose resources are fully utilized. Break-even point The point where total sales revenue equals total costs; the point of zero profits.

Activity output The result or product of an activity.

Activity output measure The number of times an activity is performed. It is the quantifiable measure of the output. Activity reduction Decreasing the time and resources required by an activity. Activity selection The process of choosing among sets of activities caused by competing strategies.

Activity sharing Increasing the efficiency of necessary activities by using economies of scale.

Activity volume variance The cost of the actual activity capacity acquired and the capacity that should be used. Activity-based cost (ABC) system A cost system that first traces costs to activities and then traces costs from activities to products.

Activity-based costing (ABC) A cost assignment approach that first uses direct and driver tracing to assign costs to activities and then uses drivers to assign costs to cost objects.

Activity-based management (ABM) A systemwide, integrated approach that

focuses management’s attention on activities with the objective of improving customer value and the profit achieved by providing this value. It includes driver analysis, activity analysis, and performance evaluation, and draws on activity-based costing as a major source of information. Activity-based management (ABM) accounting system An accounting system that emphasizes the use of

activities for assigning and managing costs.

Activity-based responsibility accounting A control system defined by centering responsibility on processes and teams where activity performance is measured in terms of time, quality, and efficiency.

Actual costing An approach that assigns actual costs of direct materials, direct labor, and overhead to products. Adjusted cost of goods sold The cost of goods sold after all adjustments for overhead variance are made.

G l o s s a r y

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Budget committee A committee responsible for setting budgetary

policies and goals, reviewing and approving the budget, and resolving any

differences that may arise in the budgetary process.

Budget director The individual responsible for coordinating and

directing the overall budgeting process.

Budgetary slack The process of padding the budget by overestimating costs and underestimating revenues. Budgets Plans of action expressed in