Aims

At the end of the class, students should have acquired the theoretical and methodological knowledge needed to construct an accounting representation of the organization that provides a relevant and coherent information in order to, on one hand, help decision making by managers and , on the other hand, to exercise control of the organization by management.

Main themes

This course studies the main cost concepts and the set of principles necessary to build accounting information systems. It also shows how these different concepts and principles have been used to build different costing systems : full absorption costing, direct or variable costing, ABC costing, target costing,…
It also develops a short term financial planning tool : budgets and the techniques of budgetary control, such as variance analysis

Content and teaching methods

Content
Part 1. The fundamental concepts
Chapter 1. A vision of the organization
Chapter 2. The main cost concepts
Chapter 3. The principles used to build an accounting information system

Part 2. The traditional costing systems
Chapter 1. The main characteristics of a "traditional" organization
Chapter 2. The full costing method
Chapter 3. Full costing : accounting and technical adaptations
Chapter 4. The application of the full costing method to different production and organizational environments
Chapter 5. Direct costing methods
Chapter 6. Budget and budgetary control

Part 3. Activity Based Costing Systems

Chapter 1. The birth of a new cost accounting model
Chapter 2. Activity Based Costing


Methods

Ex Cathedra course (45 hours) will focus on two dimensions:
- each course will consist of theoretical presentations combined with illustrations coming from the real world;
- discussion of small case studies or summaries of field situations.
- To sustain the learning process, training sessions in small groups will be devoted to concrete problem solving that put into practice the theory discussed during classes.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisite : Knowledge of basic accounting principles and techniques
Evaluation : Written exam
Support : - De Rongé Yves, Comptabilité de gestion, De Boeck Université, 1998 (new edition 2000) ;
- A set of exercises and small case studies is available at DUC, divided in two parts:
o A first set of exercises will be solved in exercise class ;
o The second part offers complementary exercises and questions of previous exams in order to help the student to prepare the final exam

Other credits in programs