Overview

View the Specialization trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE5Rx91bdYw Many corporate decisions need cost accounting information. When you know the costs of your products, you will make better pricing decisions and you can better choose which products to offer. When you know the costs of your departments, you can better detect inefficiencies and you can better incentivize your employees. In this Specialization, you will learn the fundamentals of cost accounting. Three courses cover the basics of cost accounting. We will start with an introduction to product costing. How can you figure out the costs of your individual products? Next, we will discuss how to connect cost information with revenue information to calculate profits and profitability. Finally, we focus on how to use the information provided by cost accounting systems to optimize your business decisions. We have created the courses of this Specialization for interdisciplinary young professionals seeking to develop cost accounting skills. At the same time, the courses can help students in management and business administration to repeat the content of their introductory cost accounting course.

Syllabus

Course 1: Basics of Cost Accounting: Product Costing
Course 2: Cost Accounting: Profit and Loss Calculation
Course 3: Cost Accounting: Decision Making

Courses

1 review
8 hours 14 minutes
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In the third course, you will learn how to use information from cost accounting to improve managerial decision-making. We discuss business decisions and suggest how cost information can support them best. For example, how will costs change if managers adjust cost drivers? How many units do companies need to sell in order to avoid losses or to achieve a targeted profit? How can managers improve pricing or product programs with information from cost accounting?
6 reviews
11 hours 11 minutes
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The core of the first course is to learn how companies record total costs and calculate unit costs for their individual products or services. For example, how can a car manufacturer figure out the costs of an individual car series? During the first weeks, participants learn what costs are and how to distinguish them from expenses or cash flows. Participants will understand how companies record total costs and distinguish important cost types such as material costs, personnel costs, or depreciation. At the core of their cost-accounting system, companies allocate overhead costs to individual products. We show participants how to allocate the costs incurred to the company's products and introduce them to the most important methods and challenges of product costing.
0 reviews
3 hours 48 minutes
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Companies do not only need to know the costs of different products, but they also need to know whether they gain a profit or realize a loss. We explain how companies use cost information to calculate their profit and assess their profitability. Depending on how companies account for changes in inventories, we distinguish "absorption costing" and "variable costing". In addition, some companies structure their income statement according to the "nature of expense method", while others structure it according to the "cost-of-sales method". We explain both methods and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.