ACCTG 225

Fundamentals of Managerial Accounting

Course Introduction

What Is Managerial Accounting?

The goal of managerial accounting is to provide business decision–makers with strategically important information.

Your study of financial accounting through such courses as Accounting 215 gave you an understanding of how to prepare financial statements for use by investors, creditors, and auditors. Financial accounting's goal is to provide external users of financial reports with objective information about the financial condition of an organization. In contrast, managerial accounting focuses on providing internal users with timely and relevant information for use in planning, controlling, motivating, and decision making.

This internal focus is what I find exciting about managerial accounting. An organization's financial success depends upon its leaders' ability to identify and capitalize on its strengths, to recognize and remedy its weaknesses, and to seek out profitable new opportunities. As a managerial accountant, you will play a key role in confronting and overcoming these challenges.

My goal for this course is to help you successfully complete it. Along the way, I will help you make sense of the wealth of data that business organizations collect.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to

• sift through data and pick out the information that is important to making good decisions;
• analyze complex business challenges; and
• determine the critical questions that require answers, and know how to develop the answers to those questions.

You will also have furthered your ability to add value to any organization to which you apply your talents.

About the Online Environment

Your online course offers several advantages to the traditional classroom, including the comprehensive Online Student Handbook, the ability to communicate electronically with students and with your instructor, and links to a rich array of online resources.

Online Student Handbook

This handbook answers questions about your online learning course, such as how to purchase your text, schedule an exam, obtain a transcript, and get technical help if you need it. The handbook also provides additional resources, such as how to order books or journals from the library and how to study for an online course.

Communication with Your Instructor and Student Peers

• Online Discussion Forums, designed by the University of Washington award winning Catalyst team, allow you to communicate with other currently enrolled students and with your instructor. We encourage you to use the forum to exchange ideas, resources, and comments about your course work with other students in this course. This unstructured forum is monitored by your instructor.
• You can use e-mail to ask me a question or preferably post your question on the discussion forum. I will reply on the same forum.

Online Resources

As an online student, you have access to a wealth of Web resources compiled to provide fast, easy access to information that supports your online learning experience. Organized by subjects, Online Resources link you to sites with help for writing and research, study skills, language learning, and library reference materials. All links have been assessed for credibility and reliability, and they are regularly monitored to ensure their usability.

Required Text

Garrison, Ray H., Eric W. Noreen, and Peter C. Brewer. Managerial Accounting. 11th ed. 2006. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0072834943

I like this text. The authors do a good job of presenting and explaining the foundational concepts of managerial accounting. They also provide many examples of how the concepts are applied in practice, and note some of the pitfalls that confront companies, large and small, famous and not-so-famous.

Course Organization

Accounting 225 has 10 lessons.

• Lessons One through Four will introduce the building blocks of managerial accounting and focus on two aspects of classifying costs: for external reporting purposes (yes, as managerial accountants we do have some external reporting responsibilities), and for planning and control purposes.
• Lesson Five prepares you for the first exam, which covers textbook chapters 1 through 3 and 5 through 8.
• Lessons Six through Nine will continue our analysis of costs for planning and control purposes and introduce two additional aspects of classifying costs: for performance evaluation purposes, and for decision–making.
• Lesson Ten prepares you for the final exam, which covers textbook chapters 9 through 14 and chapter 15.

Note that the final exam is not cumulative. Since the material builds on concepts covered earlier in the course, however, you will need to retain the knowledge you gained for the first exam and should not do a "memory dump" once it is completed.

Lessons

Each lesson, with the exception of exam preparation Lessons Five and Ten, covers one or two chapters from the text. The reading assignments are noted at the beginning of each lesson in these online course materials. The lessons that cover two text chapters are broken into two parts, each part dedicated to one of the chapters. I have outlined the objectives for the lesson and provided some comments on those areas to flesh out the chapter contents or to provide some specific methodologies for attacking the problems. Each lesson has an assignment to be turned in for grading.

Self–Study Exercises

For each chapter I recommend several self–study exercises. Working these exercises will help you practice the skills and concepts learned in the lesson and help prepare you for the examinations. You do not turn these exercises in for grading. I have provided answers to these self–study exercises in appendix A of these online course materials. I recommend that you read the textbook chapter and my comments on it before you tackle the assigned problems.

Appendices

Appendix A provides solutions to the self–study problems. I recommend attempting to complete the exercises before you turn to the solutions for assistance. Appendix B contains solutions to the sample exams in Lessons Five and Ten. Again, I recommend working through the exam questions before you look at the answers.

Assignments and Grading

With the exception of the exam preparation lessons, problems are assigned at the end of each lesson. The assignments consist of problems and cases from the text.

These problems are to be completed and sent to me for grading. Each assignment must be completed before the next assignment is submitted for grading. You cannot take an exam until all of the preceding assignments have been completed and submitted for grading. Since a key responsibility of a management accountant is presenting information clearly and concisely, the assignments must be legible and clearly formatted. Any assignment that is unreadable will be returned to you ungraded. Below is a list of the assignments and the point distribution for the course.

Assignments	Points Possible
Assignment 1	10
Assignments 2, 3, 4 (30 points each)	90
First exam	100
Assignments 6, 7, 8 (30 points each)	90
Assignment 9	10
Second exam	100
Total	400

Submitting Assignments

You should submit assignments by e-mail. See the instructor page linked on your course syllabus for contact information and guidelines on submitting assignments. If you need to make other arrangements for assignment submission, please contact me. This course is intended to be completed in three months, which means you should be completing an assignment a week. Complete the planning calendar on your course syllabus and print a copy to use to help you track your progress and schedule your course work.

Examinations

You will take two proctored examinations. These consist of multiple–choice and short computation problems. They are closed–book, which means you will not be allowed to bring your text or notes. However, you will need to bring a hand–held calculator to the test. You should be familiar with the various schedules and statements that are covered in the assignments and their component parts. You will have two-and-one-half hours to complete each examination.

Successfully Completing the Course

I commend you for choosing to further your studies through this distance learning course. The distance learning format can be very challenging; although you have the advantage of being able to study at your own pace (within the time limits set for the course), you will serve as your own motivator. I recommend that you set a study schedule tailored to your strengths. My additional recommendations:

• Get an early start. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the work required to complete the course. Delaying your start will heighten that feeling.
• Break the course down into parts. The course has two exams and eight graded assignments. It is difficult to attempt to complete multiple assignments in one block. Take the course one chapter and one assignment at a time.
• Read the assigned textbook chapter carefully. Students in the past have attempted to complete the assignment problems by scanning the textbook and using the illustrations as templates for solving the problems. While this text has many excellent examples, the examples serve to illustrate the concepts introduced by the narrative.
• Ask questions. If you find yourself stymied by a problem or a particular concept, please contact me either by e–mail or phone. As I noted earlier, it is my goal to help you successfully complete the course. Consider me a resource to be used just like you use your text.
• Ask questions, Part II. When you complete a problem, review your answers. Ask yourself, "Do those numbers make sense?"
• Enjoy yourself! Some people view accounting as a drudge, a series of debits, credits, accounts, and numbers. Others revel in the details and like the structure. Whatever your personal feeling, I recommend that you embrace the challenge and take pride in the fact that you are expanding your skills and honing your critical thinking abilities. You are improving yourself, and this should be enjoyed!

About the Course Developer, Tim McCorcle

Most recently, I was the director of Finance and Human Resources for Catalysis Corporation, a multimedia marketing services company located in Seattle, Washington. Prior to that, I served as the controller for a small software company, which manufactured software for the managed healthcare industry. I have held a variety of finance and accounting jobs in both the private and public sector. I have taught this course since 1996. I received my MBA from the University of Washington, where I concentrated in finance and accounting. My undergraduate degree is from the University of Colorado Boulder.

To help me get to know you better, please complete the Student Information form linked at the top of your course syllabus page and submit it when you send your first assignment.

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