Management Accounting Best Practices: A Guide for the Professional Accountant [Hardcover]

Steven M. Bragg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047174347X | ISBN-13: 978-0471743477 | Publication Date: August 31, 2007 | Edition: 1

Praise for Management Accounting Best Practices

"It doesn't matter where you start reading, even the most experienced accountant will find some useful ideas."
—Alan H. Boycott, Chartered Accountant, Düsseldorf, Germany

"This is one of the best books about new accounting practices in practical accounting. I highly recommend this book for accountants of all levels."
—Andrei Ralko, Controller, International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, NY

The only practices worth followingare the best practices...

Destined to become an essential desktop tool in helping professionals make management decisions in accounting, Management Accounting Best Practices introduces over 100 best practices from accounting expert Steven Bragg for questions such as:

• How does the system of interlocking budgets work?
• What does a sample budget look like?
• What best practices can I apply to the budgeting process?
• How can I integrate the budget into the corporate control system?
• How do throughput concepts impact the budget?

Now, when members of your management team come calling with questions, you'll have the answers at your fingertips, in Management Accounting Best Practices. It's the easy-to-use, daily reference manual for every accountant in a management position.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Management Accounting Best Practices

A Guide for the Professional Accountant

Today's practicing accountant quickly finds out that a large part of his or her position is more about management decisions and less about accounting standards. Situations eventually arise involving cost allocation systems, cost analysis, profit planning, operational budgeting, and more, requiring a functional understanding of management accounting.

Management Accounting Best Practices provides the answers to these situations and over 100 more, showing both the aspiring and seasoned accountant how to set up and manage an accounting department. With proactive and proven best practices in each chapter, this easy-to-read guide serves as a daily reference manual for every accountant in a management position.

Written by Steven Bragg—one of the most prolific accounting authorities in the world—Management Accounting Best Practices is equipped with immediately useful tips and best practices for:

• Achieving optimal credit granting decisions

• The specific control to use in major accounting processes

• The best ways to maintain customer service levels while minimizing total inventory investing

• The vital decisions and control systems needed during the new product development cycle to ensure optimal profitability of the resulting products

Chapters are organized by the different types of decisions to be made in such areas as capacity management, financial analysis, granting or denying credit, managing inventory, product pricing, and more. With best practices concepts woven into each chapter and explained in simple terms, users can review the latest techniques in this handy resource and quickly implement them on the job.

This excellent step-by-step manual of best practices shows CFOs, controllers, accounting managers, and cost accountants how to arrive at the optimum level of investment in productive capacity and, specifically, where to target new investments. Topics and information are easily found through the question-and-answer format and will make Management Accounting Best Practices a well-thumbed addition to any accountant's library.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Management Accounting Best Practices

"It doesn't matter where you start reading, even the most experienced accountant will find some useful ideas."
—Alan H. Boycott, Chartered Accountant, Düsseldorf, Germany

"This is one of the best books about new accounting practices in practical accounting. I highly recommend this book for accountants of all levels."
—Andrei Ralko, ControllerInternational Center for Transitional JusticeNew York, NY

The only practices worth followingare the best practices...

Destined to become an essential desktop tool in helping professionals make management decisions in accounting, Management Accounting Best Practices introduces over 100 best practices from accounting expert Steven Bragg for questions such as:

• How does the system of interlocking budgets work?

• What does a sample budget look like?

• What best practices can I apply to the budgeting process?

• How can I integrate the budget into the corporate control system?

• How do throughput concepts impact the budget?

Now, when members of your management team come calling with questions, you'll have the answers at your fingertips, in Management Accounting Best Practices. It's the easy-to-use, daily reference manual for every accountant in a management position.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047174347X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471743477
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The primary question I receive is, why would anyone write so many accounting books? The story began in the early 1990s, when my former boss, Jan Roehl-Anderson, asked me to assist in taking over a book called Controllership from Jim Willson (correct spelling), who had been maintaining the book since the early 1950s. I liked the experience, and even found it relaxing (I must have issues!).

So... I had an idea for another book, called Just-in-Time Accounting, which the publisher accepted, and which got me on the track of doing management accounting books. Most accounting books up to that point had primarily dealt with accounting principles and not how to management the department, so this was a rich area for new books.

The Accounting Best Practices book, which is one of the top-selling accounting books in the country, started when I was bouncing around ideas for new books with one of my editors, John DeRemigis. He suggested the accounting best practices idea, and I said, "nah, there's not enough material." Four editions later and over 400+ pages long, it appears that he was right and I was wrong.

Writing became more intense in 2005, when John Wiley & Sons recommended me to the authors of the Wiley GAAP Guide as a new co-author. This is a seriously technical high-end accounting principles guide, and so was nothing like what I had written before. My first assignment was adding a hundred or so new examples to the book, which was absolutely frantic -- imagine becoming an expert on a really far-out accounting topic in one day, writing an esoteric example, and then hurrying on to an entirely different example the next day.

I have just finished writing Accounting Controls Best Practices, which is chock-full of control points for the most common accounting systems, as well as for best practices upgrades to those systems. And now, it is time for a break, if only for a week.

So... I am heading to the Western Pacific for some serious diving off a live aboard dive boat.

Steve Bragg