Chapter 1
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Managerial Accounting: An Overview
Solutions to Questions
1-1 Financial accounting is concerned with reporting financial information to external parties, such as stockholders, creditors, and regulators. Managerial accounting is concerned with providing information to managers for use within the organization. Financial accounting emphasizes the financial consequences of past transactions, objectivity and verifiability, precision, and companywide performance, whereas managerial accounting emphasizes decisions affecting the future, relevance, timeliness, and segment performance. Financial accounting is mandatory for external reports and it needs to comply with rules, such as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and international financial reporting standards (IFRS), whereas managerial accounting is not mandatory and it does not need to comply with externally imposed rules.
1-2 Five examples of planning activities include (1) estimating the advertising revenues for a future period, (2) estimating the total expenses for a future period, including the salaries of all actors, news reporters, and sportscasters, (3) planning how many new television shows to introduce to the market, (4) planning each television show’s designated broadcast time slot, and (5) planning the network’s advertising activities and expenditures. Five examples of controlling activities include (1) comparing the actual number of viewers for each show to its viewership projections, (2) comparing the actual costs of producing a made-for-television movie to its budget, (3) comparing the revenues earned from broadcasting a sporting event to the costs incurred to broadcast that event, (4) comparing the actual costs of running a production studio to the budget, and (5) comparing the actual cost of providing global, on-location news