Management Accounting Report

RUNNING HEAD: MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
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Management
Accounting
Report
System 0032
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Management Accounting
1
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................. 1
Section 1: Budgeting and Analysis................................................................................... 1
Section 2: Costing Method.............................................................................................. 2
Section 3: Segment reporting and Performance Measurement...............................................2
References.................................................................................................................... 4

Management Accounting
2
Introduction
General Motors was founded in1918 and merged with Chevrolet Motor Corporation of
Canada to build General Motors of Canada Ltd and this was wholly owned by McLaughlin and
GM. Sam. Currently company’s vision is to become the leader in offering transportation services
and products through continuous innovation. The operations and administration department role
have changed because of technological advancement. General Motors is focusing on
transforming the future as over the past 100 years, the company marketed the best fuel-efficient
model GMC, Cadillac and Buick and remains as one of the leading automakers in Canada. The
company headquarters is located at Oshawa, the residence of the General Motors of Canada and
hub of purchasing department, finance department, planning department, and aftersales activities.
In this information age, the company changed its techniques and included knowledge systems,
databases and automated processes (Motors, 2019). Earlier General Motor’s management
accounting system included three things in the structure in order to help the top executive to
attain the objective of “centralized control with decentralized responsibility”. For knowing the
changing role of management accountant in the current era a discussion on earlier budgeting and
reporting method is done considering the example of General Motors Canada. Furthermore,
recommendations are given for the best technological approach that can be used in management
accounting and the advantages and disadvantages of using that technological approach in the
organization.
Section 1: Budgeting and Analysis
The traditional ways of formulating budget and analysis were based on the past record
that was incremental budgeting; it was the most common method of budgeting that was used
earlier to make budgets. Another method of budgeting was activity-based budgeting this was
used by General Motors; it is an approach that finds the amount of input required to get the
desired output. The company made sales report and advanced flexible budget report to control
each division actual performance earlier on the basis of these methods. Due to technology
advancement, various options are available nowadays that reduces the burden of management
accountants. The development of technology pushed each and every company to compete at the
global level (Monterio, 2016). Management accountant can use software that is readily available
that is helpful in overcoming the problems of the traditional management accounting system that
was accurateness and on-time preparation. Companies like General Motor Canada should use the
software for budgeting and forecasting that made it simple for the management accountant to get
the payback period, net present value and more calculation easy and accurate. Sage 50cloud is
budgeting software that offers various features such as cash flows and budgeting and forecasting.
This use of the software will make it easy for General Motors to increase accuracy in formulating
a budget that has a big effect on profitability as an accurate budget will reduce financial
uncertainty. Using the software for budgeting and analysis will boost up the level of functionality
and this software will allow data to be reused and stored for the future purpose this makes it easy
to change and manage the budget for long term benefits (Avgerou & Walsham, 2017). In
General Motors the challenge of diversity management makes it difficult for the company to
operate in an effective manner as each individual perceive things differently, use of software
ensures the consistency in report no matter which employee prepare this budget it will connect