Faaliyet muhasebesi

Abstract

Günümüzde firmaları yönlendiren üç önemli kavram öne çıkmaktadır: Müşteri-Rekabet-Değişim. Bu zorlayıcı üçlü içinde oluşabilecek her türlü duruma karşı zamanında önlem alabilmek için ise firmalar kendilerini sürat ve netlikle tanıyıp harekete geçmek zorundadırlar. Ürünlerinin oluşumundaki proseslerin maliyet yapılarını faaliyet temelli olarak tanımlamalı ve yapılan her işin katma değerini bilerek artık faaliyetlerini yönetir duruma gelmelidirler.. Geleneksel maliyetleme sistemleri, ürünleri dolaysız malzeme maliyetleri, dolaysız işçilik maliyetleri ile bunların dışında kalan tüm maliyetler adı altında guruplamaktadır. Genel giderler yalnızca bir tek yükleme anahtarı ile ürünlere dağıtılmaktadır. Ancak farklılaştırılmış ürün hatları, daha kısa ürün yaşam eğrileri, işgücünün üretimde sürekli düşen payı ve artan dağıtım, satış ve satış sonrası genel gider kalemleri daha gerçekçi yöntemlerin uygulanmasını gerektirmektedir. Faaliyet muhasebesi, geleneksel yaklaşımdaki genellikle departmantal yapıda karşımıza çıkan masraf ve kâr merkezleri üzerinde yoğunlaşan ilgiyi, firmanın fonksiyonlarını yerine getiren prosesler ve onun alt parçaları faaliyetler üzerine çekmektedir. Bu sayede Toplam Kalite Yönetiminde önemle üzerinde durulan proses performans göstergelerine göre karar almayı kolaylaştırmaktadır. Faaliyet muhasebesi sistemi bu noktada bize yeni yaklaşımlar sunarak ve sürekli gelişme için önemli bir altyapı oluşturmaktadır. Bu çalışmada faaliyet muhasebesi sisteminin gerekçeleri, Toplam Kalite Yönetimi ile uyumu ile Faaliyet Muhasebesi Sisteminin 7 aşamalı bir modeli incelenmiştir. Uygulama olarak da hizmet sektöründe Toplam Kalite Yönetimini benimsemiş bir firma olan Renault-Mais'te sistemin kurulabilmesi için gerekli adımlar 7 unsur içeren 6 aylık bir zamana yayılmış olarak öneri haline getirilmiştir.

A current issue facing managers in companies under pressure is not whether they have the right answers to their company's problems but whether they are asking the right questions. The fundamental problem lies with the underlying logic of conventional management accounting, which implicitly assumes that all companies conform to the labour-intensive patterns of old-fashioned manufacturing industry. However, today's companies are more complex, and the business of making things has become more complicated. By allocating overhead costs between products on the basis of the direct labour used in their manufacture, company managements often are left with no meaningful product cost information. There is a pressing need for something better. The progressive use of advanced manufactured technology and information systems made the traditional cost system obsolete by creating a computer intensive environment. However, the majority of cost accounting systems are still driven by direct production volume and provide minimal guidance for controlling overhead. Today's model of collecting costs by chart of account classification within organisational structure is providing insufficient visibility of key activities and of economic cause and effect relationships between activities. Companies attempt to adapt to today's technological capabilities and the globally competitive environment has been constrained by outdated accounting systems. Companies are beginning to experiment with new approaches to accounting system design. In recent years, companies have reduced their dependency on traditional accounting systems by developing activity-based cost management systems. Activity accounting reshapes the way companies manage costs. It attaches company costs to activities. Product cost is the sum of the cost of all traceable activities based on the usage of the activity. Cost leadership and cost-effectiveness are- critical elements of business competitiveness. Management needs accurate information for decision making, and management accountants have traditionally been the providers of this information. The Activity accounting approach can provide management with therefore a better understanding of profitability. Activity accounting systems, employ direct cost information in the same way as traditional systems, which are detailed engineered bills of material and labor. Whereas traditional cost systems assume all overhead activities are consumed equally by all products relative to volume produced, Activity XI Accounting identifies what activities are performed by the overhead organisation and calculate the cost incurred to perform each activity. A management system structured on activities ensures that are transmitted to a level at which action can be taken. Activities are what organisations do. To make changes, one must change what people do. Therefore changes must ultimately be made to activities. A conventional cost accounting system, which captures the total cost of labor at the departmental level, does not provide insight into how labor is used. To accurately trace costs to products it is necessary to break costs down into activities with unique cost behaviour patterns. Activity accounting identifies what the organisation does. In order to improve profitability and performance, it is critical to understand where the enterprise's time goes and, what the enterprise does and how it does it. An organisation can improve when management understands what is done, how well it is done, and whether it contributes to corporate objectives. As companies begin to move from cost accounting to cost management, the importance of implementing an activity accounting system becomes paramount. Activities provide valuable insight into what causes costs so that management can take the initiative to eliminate or minimise these costs. Activity accounting is a powerful tool for managing the complex operations of a business. Activity accounting attributes cost and performance data to activities. Activity cost provides management to determine an accurate product cost, improve business processes, eliminate waste and plan operations. Activities are a powerful basis for managing an enterprise. Several characteristics of activities make them such a powerful management tool. The most important of these characteristics are: -Act -Act -Acti -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act -Act vities are actions vities improve product cost accuracy vities drive cost vities facilitate evaluation of alternatives vities focus corporate strategy vities complement continuous improvement vities are compatible with total quality management vity accounting is cost effective vities are easily understood by the users vities link planning and control vities integrate financial and nonfinancial performance measures vities highlight interdependencies vities facilitate life-cycle management vities improve decision support XII Activity accounting generates cost information in a manner that drives continual improvement and total quality. Continual improvement and total quality control are facilitated by treating each activity as a process and identifying the source of cost rather than focusing on the symptoms. In focusing attention on the source of problems, management must assign responsibility to those departmental activities that drive cost. Activity information allows managers to identify and eliminate waste. It confirms progress in removing waste from operating activities. Eliminating waste and implementing a philosophy of continual improvement is not difficult if senior management has the will and if the cost management system is set up to assist. They can be impossible, however, if the accounting systems are designed around functional organisations rather than around activities. Managers must refrain from allocating all expenses to individual units and instead separate the expenses and match them to the level of activity that consumes the resources. Managers should separate the expenses incurred to produce individual units of a particular product from the expenses needed to produce different products or to serve different customers, independent of how many units are produced or sold. An activity accounting system is used to calculate a more traceable product cost, to control costs, to integrate strategic planning into the cost management system, and to manage performance. An activitiy-based product cost is derived by tracing the usage of all activities necessary to build product. A product cost becomes a summation of the cost of all traceable activities to design, procure material, manufacture and distribute a product. In daily operations, many activities are non-value added and secondary to the organisation's mission. Visibility of these non-value added and secondary activities provided by the cost management system is a basis for continuous improvement. Activity analysis provides information to identify redundant, duplicate, and wasteful activities together with the factors that drive cost. Understanding activities provides a basis for determining whether to continue performing or to restructure an activity. Continuous improvement has several objectives: - Elimination of waste (non-value added activities) - Improvement of performance of value added activities - Synchronisation of lead time within new product introduction and production cycle - Improvement of quality - Elimination of process variance by correcting the cause of the variance - Simplification of activities. An activity cost is determined by examining each organisational unit to identify its business objectives, the individual work process, and the resources allocated to achieve its objectives. Activity costing therefore identifies the way a company uses its resources to accomplish its business objectives. The traditional distinctions between fixed and variable and direct and indirect are secondary to the distinction between traceable and nontraceable costs. Activity accounting directly relates activities to the products that consume them. This is in contrast to the conventional cost accounting model, which spreads overhead costs among products on a basis that does not mirror their actual consumption. Product costing is enhanced by more specific tracing of support costs, which have traditionally been lumped into overhead and allocated to all products. An activity accounting system relies on the costing of significant business activities to: - Provide a natural baseline for describing a manufacturing process - Provide visibility of non-value added activities - Understand the underlying cause - and - effect relationship between the factors of production and the manufacturing process - identify, evaluate, and implement new activities - Capture the budgeted and actual cost - Measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the activity. Traditional methods of cost accounting are based on a product focusing the belief that all resources are acquired to support the manufacturing process. As a consequence, costs are considered to be direct or indirect to products. Activity accounting focuses on the cost of activities. Product cost becomes a secondary objective. In other words, once the cost of an activity is known, it can be related to any cost objective a customer, channel of distribution, or product. The process of identifying and quantifying the specific activities in the final cost objective is known as tracing. Because traceable costs are controllable, traceability facilitates management control. Costs are traced to a final cost objective through a bill of activities, which specifies the sequence of activities and the amount of each activity consumed. An activity-based product cost is derived by tracing the usage of all activities necessary to build a product. A product cost becomes a summation of the cost of all traceable activities to design, procure material, manufacture, and distribute a product. An activity accounting system uses the following approach: 1- Determine enterprise activities. Activities are the heart of a cost management system. 2- Determine enterprise activity cost and performance. Performance is measured as the costper output, time, to perform the activity, and the quality of the output. 3- Determine the output of the activity. An activity measure is the factor by which the cost of a process varies most directly. 4- Trace activity cost to cost objectives. Activity costs are traced to cost objectives such as products, processes, and orders based on the usage of the activity. 5- Determine corporate short range and long range goals. This requires an understanding of the current cost structure, which indicates how effectively operating activities deliver value to the customer. 6- Evaluate activity effectiveness and efficiency. Knowing the critical success factors enables a company to examine what it is now doing and the relationship of that action to achieving those goals. Compared with older methods, ABC is a more relevant method for costing products because it forces traceability of costs to products, based on the resources consumed by the activities needed to produce individual products. If a product does not use an activity, it should not absorb any of its related costs. Most important benefits to be derived from activity accounting are: - Improving make/buy, estimating, and pricing decisions that are based on a product cost that mirrors the manufacturing process - Facilitating elimination of waste by providing visibility of non-value added activities - Linking corporate strategy to operational decision making - Encouraging continual improvement and total quality control because planning and control are directed at the process level - Improving the effectiveness of budgeting by identifying the cost/performance relationship of different service levels - Improving profitability by monitoring total life-cycle cost and performance - Providing insight into the fastest-growing and visible element of cost-overhead. In this study, as an application, there is a suggestion for implementing Activity Accounting system at Renault-Mais A.Ş.