Hallmark Features of Cost Accounting

• Exceptionally strong emphasis on managerial uses of cost information
• Clarity and understandability of the text
• Excellent balance in integrating modern topics with traditional coverage
• Emphasis on human behavior aspects
• Extensive use of real-world examples
• Ability to teach chapters in different sequences
• Excellent quantity, quality, and range of assignment material

The first 13 chapters provide the essence of a one-term (quarter or semester) course. There is ample text and assignment material in the book’s 24 chapters for a two-term course. This book can be used immediately after the student has had an introductory course in financial accounting. Alternatively, this book can build on an introductory course in managerial accounting.

Deciding on the sequence of chapters in a textbook is a challenge. Because every instructor has a unique way of organizing his or her course, we utilize a modular, flexible organization that permits a course to be custom tailored. This organization facilitates diverse approaches to teaching and learning.

As an example of the book’s flexibility, consider our treatment of process costing. Process costing is described in Chapters 17 and 18. Instructors interested in filling out a student’s perspective of costing systems can move directly from job-order costing described in Chapter 4 to Chapter 17 without interruption in the flow of material. Other instructors may want their students to delve into activity-based costing and budgeting and more decision-oriented topics early in the course. These instructors may prefer to postpone discussion of process costing.