5 managerial accounting disscusion questions

each discussion question needs to be answered with a least 100 words. Will pay $3 each question. Total $15. Need completed in 6 hours. 

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1.    One of the goals of this (and other courses I’ve taught) is to make you all educated users of the financial information vs. being a specific mechanic (i.e. many of you will not be accountants, but rather, will be a user of this information).   Some courses focus on HOW to create these financial statements (think Financial Accounting) vs this course teaching us the WHY (the analytical side~assuming the accountant has already created the financial statement) and now, we (the analyst) can make some decisions based on that creation.

           Would your job be more of an analyst or mechanic?

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2.    Many of our jobs will entail aspects of BOTH.  The key is to know how to balance being a mechanic with enough emphasis put on management.   As of today, I’m building a nice ‘cash workbook’ for our department.   While I enjoy the aspects of building the framework for housing this data, I really need to cognizant of what goes inside it.  So, once the formulas and worksheets are set up, I need to be able to look for trends, and figure out what story the numbers are telling.

 I’m constantly reminding myself to balance the mechanics with the analysis                    piece.   One challenge as I have progressed a bit in my career is not wanting to lose any technical skills I’ve garnered in Excel or Access.  All too many managers are simply ‘too high level’ and I will not be one of them. 

Any advice on how to balance the two?

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3.    As we talked about last week, I know someone who works at a company wherein we spend a tremendous amount of time working every angle of Accounts Payable.  Is this wise use of time?  Should a CFO and Controller be spending upwards of 15-25% of their week reviewing AP?  Is this a waste of time?  Should it be delegated to the AP Clerk for review?  OR  Is this excellent practice wherein the foundations of the financial statements are being scoured for accuracy-and enable proper tracing of cost?

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4.    Where is the line drawn between a CFO who is too involved or being too high level?

5.    In our ABC discussions, one thing we may have touched on is the potential chance to Over or Under cost a particular product – which in turn could cost us customers and ultimately, much more.  This all relates to the successful (or unsuccessful) tracing of costs (as much is economically feasible). 

At least you’re getting the just of the fact that we (business people) need to be aware of this potential issue.   Have any of you had recent experience with this?