Online Class: Managerial Accounting 101

no certificate
with CEU Certificate*
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7Lessons
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16Exams &
Assignments -
1,099Students
have taken this course -
5Hours
average time -
0.5CEUs
Course Description
Managerial accounting is a form of accounting that deals not only with financial information, but information that is not always easy to quantify into numbers and reports. Things like employee performance, efficiency, product rates and customer satisfaction stats are all things that managerial accountants deal with. They take that information and put it into reports that are easy for managers to understand. By doing this, managerial accountants help managers make the important decisions to turn the company in a new direction, or help it continue on as a profitable and respected organization.
Financial accounting looks at the company as a whole. The net profit of the company, the revenue and expenses of the company and more. It does not look at the parts that make up the whole. This is what managerial accounting does. It takes the company and breaks it into parts that can be studied and analyzed. Maybe one department is bringing down the rest like a lead weight attached to a strong chain. If this is happening, the methods of managerial accounting will find it and that will help managers take the information and use it to make the company better and more efficient as a result.
Managerial accounting is not new, but it is revolutionary and despite originating over 100 years ago, companies are only now realizing the true power of this amazing form of company management.
Course Motivation
Accounting, like music, comes in many different forms. It is not a single entity that encompasses all needs, but a varied type of specialty that has the ability to help an organization in a variety of ways. Accounting, many may not realize, has many different styles, such as Lean Account, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Social Accounting, to name a few. While all these types of accounting are interesting in their own rights, the one form that we will be looking at will be one of the most important type for a company, managerial accounting.
Managerial accounting, sometimes called management accounting, is a type of accounting that is concerned with the provisions and the use of accounting information to a manager in an organization. Managerial accounts provide this service because it helps the managers make business decisions that will be better for the company based on the information provided.
Unlike financial accounting, which is reported publicly so that shareholders and investors can determine the strength of the company, managerial accounting is not reported publicly and is confidential, used only by the management. As well, unlike financial accounting, managerial accounting tends to be more forward looking than historical. Financial accounting looks at what happened in the past year or quarter, while forward looking managerial accounting helps to make decisions based on future financial data.
The Three Areas of Managerial Accounting
- Strategic Management. This is the advancement of the role of the management accountant to make the accountant on strategic par with the entire organization.
- Performance Management. This is the development of business decision making that will manage the performance of the company.
- Risk Management. This contributes to the practice of identifying, measuring, managing, and reporting any risks to the overall achievement of the goals that the company has set for itself.
In addition to the three focuses discussed above, managerial accounting has six aims that it uses as a guide for its use:
- Creating strategies for the business to succeed in the future.
- Planning and building activities for the business.
- Helping to make decisions in the business.
- Creating the best and most optimal use of resources in the company.
- Helping with the financial report preparation of the company.
- Protecting and safeguarding the assets of the company.
History of Managerial Accounting
Managerial accounting has a long history in the Western world, dating back to the early 19th century during the time of the Industrial Revolution. It was during this period that many companies were heavily controlled by the owner-manager who borrowed money based not on credit, but on their personal relationships with others who had money.
These companies did not have a shareholder structure, and there was little debt in these companies so there was no need to create large and complex financial reports. This is where managerial accounting came in. It was sophisticated, but easy to understand and it provided all the essential information that was needed for large scale productions such as steel and textiles.
By the 20th century, companies were facing new pressures through regulation, federal taxation, creditors, and capital markets. As a result, many firms had to raise funds from sources of capital far removed from traditional areas. To be able to do this, companies had to use detailed financial reports that would be able to show the strength of the company, based on historical data, to investors and creditors.
This new type of accounting had to be based on outside suppliers of capital that used those financial statements. Due to this new emphasis on inventory costing procedures by accountants at the turn of the century, there was a profound change in management accounting. Through the subsequent decades, management accountants would increasingly focus their efforts to ensure that the financial accounting objectives were met, and with financial reports released on time. With this shift from managerial accounting to financial accounting, managerial accounting became stagnant. Up until the 1980's, management accounting practices were pushed to the side as financial accounting methods that had been used since the days of World War One kept companies looking back rather than forward.
During the better part of the 20th century, while historical and financial accounting reigned supreme, there were some forward thinking companies that looked at managerial accounting as the method that would help their business the most.
Conclusion
Accounting in companies has generally focused on how the company did in the past, as a basis to gain more investors for the future. However, this is beginning to change as companies start looking forward towards how their companies will do in the future. Through the use of management accounting, companies can make the decisions that will help their businesses in the future and keep the company going strong into the future.
Financial accounting may have been the dominant form of accounting during the 20th century, but times have changed and now companies are looking to the 21st century as the era of management accounting.
In subsequent chapters we will learn about how management accounting differs from traditional accounting, how it fits into an organization, and the various types of managerial accounting methods that exist out there.
This is a dynamic new world that many companies have ignored since the early 1900's. Those companies willing to look at management accounting as the wave of the future, and not from the past, will be the companies that will do well. They will need management accountants to do it, making managerial accounting one of the go-to fields for accountants in the coming years.
- Completely Online
- Self-Paced
- Printable Lessons
- Full HD Video
- 6 Months to Complete
- 24/7 Availability
- Start Anytime
- PC & Mac Compatible
- Android & iOS Friendly
- Accredited CEUs

Course Lessons
Lesson One: What Is Managerial Accounting?
Lesson 1 Video
Lesson discussions: Managerial Accounting Course; Reasons for Taking this Course
Complete Assignment: An Introduction
Complete: Lesson 1 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson One: What Is Managerial Accounting?
Lesson Two: Managerial Accounting in the Organization
Lesson 2 Video
Lesson discussions: Management Methods
Complete: Lesson 2 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Two: Managerial Accounting in the Organization
Lesson Three: Specifics of Managerial Accountants
Lesson 3 Video
Lesson discussions: Professional Organizations
Complete: Lesson 3 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Three: Specifics of Managerial Accountants
Lesson Four: Traditional Managerial Accounting
Lesson 4 Video
Complete: Lesson 4 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Four: Traditional Managerial Accounting
Lesson Five: Looking at Policies and Company Components
Lesson 5 Video
Complete: Lesson 5 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Five: Looking at Policies and Company Components
Lesson Six: Activity Based Costing
Lesson 6 Video
Complete: Lesson 6 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Six: Activity Based Costing
Lesson Seven: Balanced Scorecard
Lesson 7 Video
Lesson discussions: Let us know what you think of this course; Program Evaluation Follow-up Survey (End of Course); Course Comments
Complete: Lesson 7 Assignment
Assessment: Lesson Seven: Balanced Scorecard
Assessment: The Final Exam
Learning Outcomes
- Define managerial accounting.
- Describe managerial accounting in the organization.
- Describe the specific duties of managerial accountants.
- Describe traditional managerial accounting.
- Describe policies and company components that affect managerial accounting.
- Define activity based costing.
- Summarize a balanced scorecard for a company's accounting practice.
- Demonstrate mastery of lesson content at levels of 70% or higher.
Additional Course Information

- Document Your Lifelong Learning Achievements
- Earn an Official Certificate Documenting Course Hours and CEUs
- Verify Your Certificate with a Unique Serial Number Online
- View and Share Your Certificate Online or Download/Print as PDF
- Display Your Certificate on Your Resume and Promote Your Achievements Using Social Media

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Time to complete | 12 Months |
No. of courses | 600+ |
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Instructor support |
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Time to complete | 24 Months |
No. of courses | 600+ |
Student Testimonials
- "I have had a great experience in all courses instructed by Dr. Metodija S., and I'm so grateful to him." -- Anna N.
- "The course was very useful to me. I learned a lot of helpful things for our business. The instructor was great. Thank you." -- Heidi H.
- "I found that all the lessons were very powerful in explaining the course material." -- Fred K.
- "I wanted an overview of managerial accounting as I didn't feel like I understood it before. It was a good overview. What is an awesome instructor." -- Sarah K.
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