Reference no: EM133678917 , Length: word count:2500

Managerial Accounting

Assignment - Case Study and Report Purpose:

To allow students to demonstrate their mastery of the subject, and further their team-working and communication skills using computer software for analysis. This assessment relates to learning outcomes a, b, c, and e.

Assessment topic: Responsibility Accounting and Budgeting

Background to topic:
Performance measurement systems for the basis for communicating and coordinating the efforts of management in achieving corporate goals, monitoring, and measuring performance and controlling the operations of the organisation. The budget mechanism is the basis for forming the financial plan for each organisation and this task will require students to develop the skills required to consider how varying economic and budget assumptions will impact on the financial outcome for a company. The measures included in the budget often provide the basis for measuring the performance of individual divisions and for the corporate group as a whole by the use of benchmarking and considering strategic priorities.

Task details:
Students are to form into groups of three or four. All students in each group are to be from the same lecture class. Each group is to produce a report suitable for presentation in a professional organisational setting and conforming to the academic standards of referencing peer reviewed articles.

Part A Budget-Benchmarking Creation and Analysis
Each group will be given a unique set of financial data along with budget assumption information relating to the desired budgetary assumptions relating to future inflationary trends, planned divisional changes and specific performance measures to be adapted to each group's budget.

Each group will apply the parameters given and create a divisional budget plan. This budget plan will be delivered in Week 8 for review, and they will be given a response from the lecturer simulating a response from senior management including several benchmarks that management have decided the 'group division' should use to finalise their 'budget submission'.

The group is to analyse their originally budgeted performance to the given benchmark standards to identify any gaps in performance and create practical suggestions to overcome any shortfalls. Each group will have until the final due date to modify and update their budget and provide justification for their final budget estimates and analysis.

Budget assumptions

Each group will be allocated an initial set of budget assumptions in relation to the expected operational and economic changes that will impact on the company's operation over coming financial year at the divisional level. The group are to consider these assumptions and apply these when setting the budget amounts with reference to the performance measures for that division/department of the company.

Part B Report to management - Research component

Management at the group's 'allocated company' have raised a number of issues relating to effective performance measures related to benchmarking as follows:

1. What are the advantages of internal benchmarking?

2. What benefits may be possible if the company used external benchmarking?

3. Describe the major types of external benchmarking.

4. Research and find at least three industry benchmarking sources and summarise the content of these benchmarking sources.
Each group is to examine the research related to the following three questions from management and a present well-reasoned critical review of each issue and present their findings in Part B of the Budget-Benchmarking Report. Their analysis of each issue is to be supported by current academic research relevant to the question posed with a MINIMUM of four academic articles for EACH GROUP MEMBER. (i.e. to achieve a pass mark, 12 articles minimum will be required if three members or 16 articles if four members.) For groups to score higher than 15/30, greater numbers of articles should be presented and reviewed.

Overall submission requirements details

All initial creation of budget calculations and the budget report must be prepared using Google Sheets and Google Docs with these files shared with all group members and the lecturer and progress will be monitored from Week 6 through to the final submission. During the creation of the draft, group members must identify the sections each group member is contributing. This may be done by typing their student ID and name and, if preferred, they may use different colour fonts at each appropriate section. Evidence of ongoing contributions from all group members over the period from Week 6 to Week 10 is a requirement to attain the full group mark.

During class in Week 8, the lecturer will review the Google Doc as a draft edition with the initial budget projects completed. The calculations performed should also be available as a Google Sheets file shared with the lecturer.

Word count: The total word count will depend on the number of students in the group however the following provides a guide:
The number of words submitted in Part A should be sufficient to support analysis of the budget and benchmark comparison. As the majority of Part A - Budget and benchmarking review - will require mathematical analysis, the word count will vary. Guidance will be given in the Week 8 class review if further work is required. Minimum word count for Part A likely to be 1,00-1,500 words total - excluding Executive

Summary.
EACH student is expected to contribute a minimum of 500 words to Part B - the research component of the group report. Therefore, a group of 4 students would submit a report of no less than 2000 words for Part B.