Assignment Task: You are appointed as the assistant management accountant of a company of your own choice, operating either in the service or manufacturing industry. The main aim of the company is to improve operating efficiency by controlling cost and improving profitability. Your task is to write a report to the Board of Directors that will be discussed in the next board meeting. You are required to: 1. Discuss the importance of management accounting for your selected organisation and differentiate between management accounting and financial accounting. (300 words) 2. Evaluate different classifications of costs (types, behaviour, function and relevance) with examples. (650 words) 3. Explain the meaning of variance analysis and discuss the most commonly derived variances, outlining the problems and limitations. (550 words) 4. Identify different operational budgets and explain the advantages of preparing different operational budgets. (500 words) Total marks for assignment: 100 Marking Scheme: What is expected within students' answers Ability to introduce the report, by including assignment objective. Outline the importance of management accounting and the differences between management accounting and financial accounting. Evaluate the need for classification of costs on the basis of types, functions, behaviour and relevance. Discuss variance analysis with its common types and problems and state the advantages of preparing operational budgets with examples. Demonstrate the ability to relate theory to the real world. Arguments should be clearly summed up to reach a conclusion and recommendation. Clear, professional evidence of wide research should be provided. Marks awarded Introduction 5 Importance of management accounts 5 Differences between management accounts and financial accounts 10 Four classification of the costs, graphs/charts 20 Meaning of variance analysis, types of variance analysis and problems of using variance analysis 15 Discussion on different of operational budgets 8 Evaluate the importance of operational budgets 7 Conclusion and Recommendation 10 Content, style, relevance, originality 10 Format, referencing, bibliography 10 Total marks 100