Cost Accounting and Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition (Self-Learning Management Series) - Softcover

Publishers, Vibrant; Ashar, Kalpesh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1949395359 ISBN 13: 9781949395358

Publisher: Vibrant Publishers, 2019

Synopsis

· UPDATED 2020 EDITION
· New: Includes Chapter Summaries and Solutions to Practice Exercises
· Fundamentals and important principles included
· Practical approach for application by business professionals
· Solved examples with real-life business scenarios

Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition is an introduction to cost accounting for engineers and scientists moving into management roles. The book covers:
· An introduction to cost accounting
· Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) analysis
· Activity based Costing
· Other aspects of cost allocation and control
· Decision making using relevant information

About the Series
Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted To Know: 4th Edition is part of the Self-Learning Management Series that helps working professionals moving into management roles. This Self Learning Management Series intends to give a jump start to working professionals, whose job roles demand to have the knowledge imparted in a B-school but haven’t got a chance to visit one. This series is designed to address every aspect of business from HR to Finance to Marketing to Operations, be it any industry. Each book includes basic fundamentals, important concepts, standard and well-known principles as well as practical ways of application of the subject matter. The distinctiveness of the series lies in that all the relevant information is bundled in a compact form that is very easy to interpret.

About the Author
Kalpesh Ashar is a management consultant and corporate trainer holding an MBA (Dean’s Award Winner) from SPJIMR, one of Asia’s top business schools, and an Engineering degree with honors in Electronics. He has over 21 years of experience in large organizations and start-ups in Asia, USA, and Europe.
Kalpesh has worked in several project management roles, like Senior Project Manager, Delivery Manager, and Program Manager. He is passionate about writing on management subjects. His techno-business background gives him a unique position to write on management topics that are easy to understand for non-MBA graduates. His books are authored in a simple to understand manner without unnecessary use of management jargons.

About Vibrant Publishers
Vibrant Publishers is focused on presenting the best texts for learning about technology and business as well as books for test preparation. Categories include programming, operating systems and other texts focused on IT. In addition, a series of books helps professionals in their own disciplines learn the business skills needed in their professional growth.
Vibrant Publishers has a standardized test preparation series covering the GMAT, GRE and SAT, providing ample study and practice material in a simple and well organized format, helping students get closer to their dream universities.

About this title

Review

"Five Stars"  - Bruce Miller for Team Golfwell
 
I enjoyed reading, the 2020 Edition of "Cost Accounting & Management Essentials You Always Wanted to Know" by Kalpesh Ashar, a management consultant and corporate trainer and has an Engineering degree and experience in large corporations as well as start-ups.  He writes with excellent practical knowledge gained from over 20 years of experience. This is a self-help or self-learning book which allows you to become very familiar with the principles of cost accounting, on your own, at your own speed, and learn when it is convenient for you all of which enhanced my business skills.

The book covers Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis, Decision Making using Relevant Information, Activity Based Costing, Support Department Cost Allocation,Cost Control and more.

I liked the book very much since the author shows respect for your time by getting to the point quickly as he excellently explains the concepts in a clear and concise manner. The new 2020 Edition also has a Chapter Summary at the end of each chapter which makes it easy to go back and refresh your memory of the major points in each chapter. There is also a Glossary of accounting terms at the end of the book which I found to be handy when learning some of the new terms and very helpful overall.

I found the Practice Exercises very helpful as well. The new 2020 Edition also provides solutions to the problems in the book which can be downloaded, and the solutions are very detailed and very helpful.

Finally, I have read that true genius is the ability to explain complex concepts in easy to understand terms, and in my view, the author shows his genius by writing a very easy to read and practical book.
 
 
"I liked that this wasn't just a book devoted to the numbers when it came to making decisions" - Sue Magee for The Bookbag
 
My problem was that the accounts didn't really give me any help in making decisions, which was why I turned to Cost Accounting and Management, part of Vibrant Publishers' Self-Learning and Management series. Cost accounting provides the information required by authorities external to the company and to those within it who need to make decisions, so don't worry that you're going to have to draw up two sets of accounts!

Before I opened the book I was nervous that I would find myself out of my depth, but I was eased into the concepts with a look at cost accounting terms. The definitions are clear with plenty of simple examples and I soon realised that my accounts were lacking and rather simplistic. Costing systems lead to a clearer income statement which actually aids decision making.As you're introduced to concepts you're given examples to work and they are immediately followed by the solution.

I liked that this wasn't just a book devoted to the numbers when it came to making decisions: there are qualitative factors to be taken into account too. The book shows you how to look at outsourcing, product mix and one-off orders in detail - these are not situations where a snap decision should be made.

Activity Based Costing mines deeper into the specifics of costing activities and allows all expenses to be tracked back to individual products,which is invaluable when you're considering which lines (or customers!) to concentrate on - or discontinue. Support department cost allocation is useful not just for allocating costs as the name suggests, but also for unearthing unused capacity.

Some parts of the book I'm unlikely to use but the fact that I could complete the exercises gave me more confidence in my abilities in the parts which I knew I would use. There's an excellent glossary which is invaluable, if only to check that you understand the American usage of certain terms.
 
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vibrant Publishers
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1949395359
• ISBN 13: 9781949395358
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 136