Managerial Accounting Practices - Essay Example

Claire’s Antiques may have to sell its products at a discount or even at a loss to liquidate its inventory. To reduce inventory costs, management is considering implementing a "Just In Time" inventory management system. If this JIT inventory strategy gets implemented then Claire’s Antiques would see a good improvement on the return on investment as there would be a reduction in the in-process inventory and its associated costs. It is essential to implement it correctly and utilize it optimally because if there is any disruption at any given point in the supply chain, then all production grinds to a halt.

The internal specifications presented in this report are sufficiently logical and enable good economic decision making. For example, specific reporting periods may be replaced with access to real-time data that enable quick response to changing conditions. And, forecasted outcomes become much more critical for planning purposes. Likewise, cost information should be disseminated in such a way that we can focus on different manufacturing processes such as design, material acquisition, assembly, testing and so on.

-> Cost/Volume/Profit Analysis: Claire’s Antiques deals with multiple products, and thus offers a diverse product line, and the individual products have different selling prices, contribution margins and contribution margin ratios. As such in Claire’s Antiques case, the bedroom suites have a higher profit margin when compared to other products, but at the same time it also has a lower sales volume. . contribution margins and contribution margin ratios. As such in Claire's Antiques case, the bedroom suites have a higher profit margin when compared to other products, but at the same time it also has a lower sales volume.

Yet the firm's total fixed cost picture would be the same, no matter the mix of products sold. There are few assumptions which could be considered here :Costs can be segregated into fixed and variable portionsThe linearity of costs is preserved over a relevant range (i.e., variable cost is constant per unit, and fixed cost is constant in total)Revenues are constant per unit and multiple-product firms meet the expected product mix ratiosOne additional assumption is that inventory levels are fairly constant, with the number of units produced equaling the number of units sold.

If inventory levels fluctuate, some of the variable and fixed product costs may flow into or out of inventory, with a variety of potential impacts on profitability-> Job Costing: Determining the cost data for products and services are the end results of productive processes. Multiple processes are required to bring about a deliverable output.A logical starting point for job costing is to track the direct labor to specific jobs. It is required to capture the time spent on each job by each employee on a tracker .

This would allow cost assignment to specific jobs. The next important thing would be to keep a detailed record of the materials released to each job. As such, in the case of manufacturing a clock, the materials used is solid oak wood, glass door, clock mechanism and pendulum. The information gathered provides essential documentation to safeguard and track