Management accounting involves facilitating decisions that are faced by management by providing inputs and decision techniques for those decisions.

For example, where a decision is based on costs, those costs have to be derived accurately and used properly in a decision for that decision to be useful. The costs required may have to be produced by an accounting system or computation that is kept accurate by adherence to a company policy. All of these aspects will be studied during this management accounting course and those that follow.

A management accountant must be able to identify the correct costs, and the best approach to solve the problem at hand. This will require the ability: to understand cost information, to develop costing systems; to identify and isolate relevant costs, to prepare capital budgeting analysis and other forms of analysis; and to develop appropriate policies and organizational structures with appropriate degrees of reporting.

The objective of this course is to develop an understanding of management issues and the tools used to identify and solve such issues. We will demonstrate that management accounting is most effective when it is developed in the context of the organization's strategy, rather than as an end in itself.

In addition, this course will offer an opportunity for students to examine the role, professional attitudes, and ethical expectations of the management accounting professional, and identify frameworks for ethical analysis and decision-making.