Archive for the 'Accounting Management' topic

Many methods have been put forth for cost accounting and control and value management. The main cost accounting methods charge costs to center and activity. Financial accounting charges some costs as expenditures to objects. Value management methods used today do not manage actual business value creation, but provide arbitrary methods to calculate numbers called value.

Cost accounting and value management are prevented by the organization of today’s enterprise

Conventional cost management is restricted by problems with “intangible assets”, “unknown costs”, and confusion over where to charge costs. We also want to manage value, but we have no viable method for value management. We need a method to get rid of intangible assets and unknown costs and to charge our costs to the meaningful things. We also need a method to manage value as part of our business.

Result-performance Management provides the answer by organizing the business for 21^st Century Management

Result-performance Management (R-pM) is a breakthrough for actual business cost and value management. Result-performance Management (R-pM) is available today to organize and manage the business by all tangible and intangible capital utilized as solutions in performance to incur performance costs to produce economic output value in results over planned time periods. [more...]

20^th century management lays reporting structures over the business

Since the business is not organized or managed the actual business cannot be reported. Management reporting is against the myriad of organization, management, administrative, and other structures laid over the business. Each structure employs its own terminology and information systems to produce reports on the structure. This produces a myriad of unrelated management reports for plans, business processing, resource planning and utilization, manufacturing, supply chains, customer relationships, accounting, quality control, financial management, human resource management, information technology management and on and on. The reporting possibilities create information complexity with no specific framework to relate all the reporting. Despite all the reports and complexity, there is no direct reporting on the actual business.

We try to bring together information from the diverse structures by adding special 20^th century reporting structures, such as:

• Performance management: Control panels, dashboards, scorecards and various other structures to capture and report information
• Strategic enterprise management: Structures to consolidate defined information from specific information systems
• Data reconciliation: Structures to gather and redefine inconsistent data from diverse systems
• Decision support and drill down: Structures to allow management to search and find information in diverse systems
• Categorization: Structures laid over information to reconcile and restructure information and to manage records, documents, reports, content, and other information sub-sets

These various reporting structures and supporting information systems constitute a large overhead and contribute to rather than solving information and business complexity problems. Management information produced is inconsistent, inaccurate, and incomplete in terms of what is actually happening in the business.

Business management reporting must be against the current and planned business

In order to report the business the actual business must be organized, planned, directed, and controlled as explained in previous articles. Actual business reporting is provided by Result-performance Management (R-pM) by reporting the three components of the business:

• Results: The economic outputs of value and quality produced across the business
• Capital: The investments in capital as specific solutions that must be acquired and developed to provide the capability to produce future results and that must be utilized in business performance to produce actual results
• Performance: The deployment and utilization of a specific capital solution to incur costs and provide effectiveness in producing a specific result in a performance domain

The business can be reported only by organizing the actual business as current results produced, invested capital available to the business, and performance in the utilization of the capital to produce results. [more...].

20^th century management lays structures over the business to control the enterprise

The operations and development of the enterprise today are controlled by structures laid over the business for:

• Financial and statistical accounting through a chart of accounts structure
• Cost accounting through activity, center, and product structures
• Capital development control through project structures and asset registers
• Quality control through TQM, six sigma, and other quality structures

The control provided by each of these structures is limited to known entities and certain elements. Financial control covers capital for tangible assets and finances for cash receipts and expenditures, cost control is limited to known costs against selected elements like activity or project, non-financial control is sporadic depending on individual management, and quality focuses on performance producing selected end-product results.

Accounts record accrued and actual receipts and expenditures from point money comes in to the point money is spent. There is no control of the business cycle from the point money is spent until value is created to enable money to come in. Accounting control is enforcement of rules and principles rather than providing accurate information for business control.

Capital development lumps costs together as a project or tangible asset. The range or performance solutions developed are not controlled and may be classified as intangible assets. No method or information is provided to plan and control return on specific capital investments in performance solutions. Projects are not organized to capture development costs for implemented solutions and plan value-added to the business from solution utilization. Capital worth numbers are sporadic for some asset and liability solutions, but real capital worth in the capability to produce future business value is unknown.

Each structure is separate from other structures and uses its own terminology and definitions to describe the enterprise. Each structure introduces high costs and much effort to collect and report information. But, none of these overlaid structures can control the actual business.

The actual business must be controlled for each component of the current and planned business

In order to control the business the actual business must be organized, planned, and directed as explained in previous articles. [more...].

Structures laid over the business produce enormous information complexity

20^th century management does not manage the actual business, but manages the enterprise using a multitude of organization, process, account, performance, system, administration, etc structures laid over the business. The structures are rigid and do not change with actual business change. No structure captures consistent, complete, and accurate business data. The various structures use different names for the same entity and different definitions for the same part of the enterprise. Information systems computerize the various structures producing enormous amounts of incomplete, inconsistent, and inaccurate information. This causes the exploding information complexity and information management problems enterprises are experiencing today.

Information generally is not organized and managed as capital

Information capital management is not well organized. Accounting is responsible for financial records, information technology may perform data management and record retention, there may be a function for knowledge management, record management, or business or management intelligence. Even with this, there is little management of information for application to improve the business. There is no structure to relate information directly to the business and no data is collected on the actual business as a related set.

The explosion in enterprise information problems and investments demands a basic rethink

These problems are aggravated by the proliferation of IT use for email, Internet information storage and downloads, information exchanges, imaged documents, etc. New corporate governance requirements demand a solution to these problems. [more...]s.

20^th century management cannot capture and report essential business management information

20^th century management lays separate structures over the business for management organization, planning, direction, control, and reporting, such as:

• Organization charts, reporting relationships, and job descriptions for organization
• Strategy, corporate plan, investment, and budget structures for planning
• Work flow, function, project, process, and system structures for direction
• Financial and statistical accounting, activity and project costing, and quality structures for control
• Financial statements, performance management, and strategic enterprise management structures for reporting

Each structure defines inconsistent and conflicting entities like business unit, department, center, function, activity, project, responsibility, etc. The overlaid structures can produce enormous amounts of information producing business and information complexity. But 20^th century management cannot capture and report essential business management information.

20^th century management does not define the entities that contain cost, value, worth, and return

In order to capture data and report information about an entity, the entity must be defined and recorded. 20^th century management attempts to report cost, value, worth, and return without defining the entities that contain cost, value, worth, and return.

Costs are attributed to some known tangible assets and collected against contrived entities like activity, project, and accounts that were not produced by the costs. Numbers for value are produced by certain contrived methods and formulas to lay value chains over the business, without defining and managing the entity that contains value. Worth is defined by arbitrary depreciation formulas for fixed assets, but ignored for human and other capital. Much high-worth capital is labeled as “intangible assets” and not accounted for or managed. Capital development does not identify the precise capital items that are being acquired and developed or the planned utilization of the capital in the business to provide return on investments. [more...].

Financial Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management

Financial Management manages money separate from other tangible assets

The early 20^th century enterprise was concerned about managing and protecting cash. Financial management fundamentals were established to manage actual and accrued cash from the point received until the point that it is invested or spent. Financial management problems such as unknown capital worth, unknown costs, unknown value creation, and unknown return on capital investments have never been solved by traditional financial management. Financial management tends to be equated with capital management. This allows non-financial capital to be administered, rather than managed, or to be labeled as “intangible assets” and not accounted for or managed. Today, financial capital is managed largely by computers. Non-financial capital and intangible assets are an increasing percentage of enterprise worth and must be managed properly.

R-pm manages financial capital with other tangible facility capital to create value in results

Result-performance Management (R-pM) utilizes conventional financial management capabilities to manage all tangible facility assets in the 21^st century. Financial assets and facilities are a sub-set of reusable facility equipment, cash is a sub-set of consumable facility supply, and accounts are sub-set of facility financial records.

All facility capital requires similar application of expertise to operate and maintain, to supply, and to record. R-pM ensures that all facility capital is supported for operation and development and for utilization to produce value in results.

R-pM also integrates financial parts of other results that have been separated out. Management strategy capital includes financial strategies as an integral part of management strategy solutions. Investment management results manage shareholder funds for investment, capital development, and shareholder value results.

The Financial Management Problem

20^th century financial management gives us intangible assets, unknown costs, unknown value, and unknown worth

Now, as we go into the 21^st century, there is a growing need to go beyond financial management fundamentals and change the way enterprise capital is managed: [more...]

Accounting, today, does not maintain accurate business records

20^th century management does not organize or manage the business. This makes it impossible to keep records on output results of value produced by the business and the consumption of capital in costs to produce each result. Instead of recording the actual business, a chart of accounts is laid over the business to record income and expenses and the worth of certain known assets. 20^th century accounting records the cash generated and spent by the business, rather than recording the complete development and utilization of capital and the complete economic output results produced by the business.

Accounting, today, contains many unsolvable 20^th century problems

Accounting is one of the main unsolvable problems of 20^th century management. Accounting is separate from the actual business, keeps only a sub-set of needed financial and non-financial business records, keeps records against a contrived chart of accounts and not the actual business, sees it role as control rather than capital management and business support, allows financial management problems such as intangible assets and unknown costs to persist, does not provide complete and accurate business information needed for corporate management and governance, and on and on.

R-pM accurately records and accounts for the actual business for 21^st Century Management

21^st century management uses Result-performance Management (R-pM) to organize the actual business as one integrated business structure. The business structure replaces all organization, accounting, planning, performance, costing, reporting, and administration structures laid over the business. R-pM employs professional records management to manage facility records as capital, to maintain complete and accurate financial and non-financial records on the actual business, and to provide information performance solutions from records for good corporate management and governance. Records management is integrated within the business to be utilized to make decisions at all levels and to record accurately actual business decisions made.

The business is the only valid account structure

The business structure organizes the economic output results of value produced to give revenues and income, the capital in performance solutions utilized to incur costs, and the positive worth of capital as assets and the negative worth as liabilities; to provide the only valid account structure. The business structure is professionally maintained as a business organization solution to represent the actual business accurately. Accounts are maintained by professional facility records management to maintain full financial, statistical, and qualitative records on the complete business. The actual business provides the chart of accounts and records are updated from actual business data on result value produced, performance costs incurred, result value-added, and capital worth. Complete and accurate records are maintained on the full business cycle and the full business scope across the enterprise.

This is explained further in the article “Your Business is your only valid Account Structure” in 21^st Century Management Magazine. The guidance needed to organize, manage, and account for your actual business is provided in the R-pM Toolkit, your 21^st Century Management Manual, which can be downloaded from Result-performance-Management.com. .

20^th century management cannot manage the components of profits

20^th century management does not manage contribution to profits from the line business and profits from complete enterprise operation. 20^th century management accounts for profits by adding up cash income and cash expenses, independent from enterprise operations and management.

21^st century management manages the components of profits to manage profits

The business consists of economic output results of value that must be managed to manage revenues and income. The business also consists of capital utilized or consumed in the business in the form of performance solutions that must be managed to manage performance costs and expenditures. Result-performance Management (R-pM) organizes the business in the output results produced to create value and the performance solutions utilized to incur costs to determine result value-added, the most important management metric for 21^st Century Management.

Contribution and profits are not just lines that happen to appear on an income statement. Contributions and profits are results produced by the business that should be planned and managed on a daily basis with result goals. Contribution and profits are derived from result value added over performance costs for all the economic output results from the business. Therefore, the value of every economic output result and the performance costs producing the result must be managed to manage the result value-added that goes to contribution and profits.

20^th century management does not manage result value or performance costs

20^th century management does not define or manage results as one set of economic outputs produced by the business. [more...].

There has never been a workable cost-accounting method

Knowing and managing costs has been a major management concern, since the beginning of business. We have faced two major problems in managing costs:

• We do not have one entity that generates costs, and includes all costs incurred
• We do not have one entity that meaningfully absorbs costs for good management

One entity must generate all costs

Many methods have been contrived for costing and cost accounting. The methods try to gather “known” costs for separate entities like employees, fixed assets, cash, and supplies. The other capital utilized has never been defined and produces “unknown costs” or is labeled “intangible assets”. All costs come from consumption of tangible and intangible capital. This is performance and all capital utilized must be organized and defined as one entity “performance solution”.

One entity must absorb all costs

Costing methods charge costs against entities like center, station, activity, and product. Product is the only entity actually produced by the cost. However, many other outputs also are produced by costs. Products and other outputs produced by costs are part of one entity “result”. The result is the entity that contains the value created by the costs and is the only entity that can absorb costs to show the value added by performance.

Performance Solutions generate costs and Results absorb costs against Result value to manage value-added

The only way to know all of our costs and to charge costs properly to manage value added is Result-performance Costing. By establishing result value-quality chains, we can know the cost and value of each result in the chain leading to the final product or service result that leaves the enterprise to produce our revenue and profit results. This is explained in the article “Know Unknown Costs through Result-performance Costing” in the 21^st Century Management magazine. Result-performance Management (R-pM) organizes the business for 21^st century management and to employ Result-performance Costing.

21^st Century Management eliminates 20^th century problems

Result-performance Management (R-pM) eliminates the costing problem and other costly 20^th century problems. Slash costs, simplify business management, and boost your competitive advantage through R-pM, the conventional method for 21^st century management.

Download your 21^st Century Management Manual today

Your 21^st Century Management Manual, The R-pM Toolkit, is available today and is under continual development to expand and refine 21^st Century Management. Get your R-pM Toolkit, and future updates, at result-performance-management.com. .

Many posts at the Business Change Forum discuss the problems with 20^th century accounting and the need for professional records management for 21st Century Management. Rule No. 4 of the Ten Rules for 21 Century Management is: Keep records on the full cycle of cost and value in operations and development.

Today’s enterprise faces many obstacles to professional record capital management provided by R-pM. Financial accounting is often seen as enterprise records management, but maintains a professional view of what it will record, and acts as an administrative function, rather than professional records management. Financial accounting does not record the business, but accounts against a chart of accounts overlaid on the business.

This subject is discussed in an article in the 21^st Century Management Magazine, Broaden Financial Accounting to provide Professional Records Management. The article shows how R-pM provides a unique opportunity for the accounting profession to expand to professional records management. Professional facility records management maintains financial and non-financial facility records of the actual business, and provides information capital solutions from records, where needed to produce results at all levels of business management.

This article is important for the future of professional business, financial, cost, or management accountants and anyone in the accounting, auditing, and records management profession. If you are in the industry, read the article carefully and forward it your fellow professionals, for their views.

21^st Century Management eliminates 20^th century problems

Result-performance Management (R-pM) eliminates the records management problem and other costly 20^th century problems. Slash costs, simplify business management, and boost competitive advantage through R-pM, the conventional method for 21^st Century Management.

Download your 21^st Century Management Manual today

Your 21^st Century Management Manual, The R-pM Toolkit, is available today and is under continual development to expand and refine 21^st Century Management. Get your R-pM Toolkit, and future updates, at result-performance-management.com..