What you will study
The course comprises the following eight units:
Unit 1: Your role as a budget holder
This unit will enable you to:
- describe the three main functions of accounting
- know where to find the rules used in your organisation to govern financial management
- explain the role of management accounting in supporting the managers of a business to make financial decisions.
Unit 2: Budgeting
This unit will enable you to:
- define what a budget is
- know the difference between top-down and bottom-up budgeting
- explain the advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches to budgeting
- explain and use flexible budgeting
- understand some behavioural aspects of budgeting
- apply these ideas on budgeting to your own area of responsibility.
Unit 3: Classification of costs
This unit will enable you to:
- explain the difference between expenses and costs
- classify cost items according to their behaviour
- recognise the importance of understanding the cost structure of your organisation or business unit
- make decisions based on relevant costs
- identify the opportunity costs of the choices you make.
Unit 4: Costing of products and services
This unit will enable you:
- use absorption costing to calculate the cost of a product
- describe several methods for allocating indirect costs to cost objects.
Unit 5: Controlling income and expenditure
This unit will enable you to:
- describe the importance of controlling costs in any organisation
- recognise how budgetary control fits into an organisation’s system of control
- explain what are favourable and adverse variances
- describe how flexible budgeting enables a different analysis of variances from the plan.
Unit 6: Why cash is important
This unit will enable you to:
- define cash flow and explain why it is important to manage it
- recognise the structure of a basic cash flow forecast
- use a cash flow forecast in planning and decision-making
- apply these ideas to your own area of responsibility.
Unit 7: Investment appraisal
This unit will enable you to:
- identify three different techniques for evaluating the financial aspects of projects or investments
- explain the time preference of money
- identify the theory behind choosing the discount rate to use in a project or investment evaluation.
Unit 8: Pricing
This unit will enable you to:
- adopt different strategies for price-setting
- calculate the break-even point for a product.
You will learn
On completion of this course you will learn to:
- explain the strengths and weakness of the budgeting process
- apply some rules of thumb to controlling a budget
- explain different types of cost and calculate the break-even point for a product
- understand the importance of cash flow and create simple cash flow forecasts
- ask better questions of the management accountants who support you in your role
- apply alternative techniques for evaluating the financial aspects of projects and investments.
Learner support
Expert, confidential learner support is available when you need it from a learning adviser, who will respond to you directly. Other support is available via the course forum, dedicated website and computing helpdesk.
Practice-based assignment
There is a practice-based assignment (PBA) which you complete at the end of the course to demonstrate how you have applied, or are intending to apply, the theories and models you have learnt. Once completed and successfully passed you will receive a digital badge and a course completion certificate which you can download as a record of your learning.