This book presents a comprehensive method by which to determine the proportionate share of the costs and revenues generated by the development of new water, wastewater, and stormwater facilities. It presents a rational, legally defensible approach to assessing charges based on the use of new and existing facilities to support new system development. Written by a consultant who has helped hundreds of communities deal with how to pay for growth, the book is designed for all communities presently engaged in calculating and administering charges for new development, as well as those planning for future growth.

"Construction Economics in a Single European Market" is an edited selection of papers from the first European Construction Economics Conference. Experts give details on construction costs from many European countries including Denmark, Ireland, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain and the UK. This book should be of interest to quantity surveyors, construction economists, and university and college researchers.

The Net Present Value (NPV) forecast lies at the heart of the business case on many projects. Martin Hopkinson's guide explains when, why and how NPV models should be built for projects and how this approach can be integrated with the risk management process. NPV models tend to be used during the earliest phases of a project as the business case is being developed. Typically, these are the stages when uncertainty is at its highest and when the opportunities to influence the project's plan are at their greatest. This book shows how project financial forecasting and risk management principles can be used to both improve NPV forecasts and to shape the project solution into one that is risk-robust. The text is sufficiently broad to be practicable for first-time users to employ the methods described. But it also contains insights into the process that are likely to be new to the majority of experienced practitioners. All users should find that the models used in this book will help to provide useful templates for exploiting the techniques that are used.

Performance management is key to the ongoing success of any organisation, allowing it to meet its strategic objectives by designing and implementing management control systems. This book goes beyond the usual discussion of performance management in accounting and finance, to consider strategic management, human behaviour and performance management in different countries and contexts. With a global mix of world-renowned researchers, this book systematically covers the what, the who, the where and the why of performance management and control (PMC) systems. A comprehensive, state-of-the-art collection edited by a leading expert in the field, this book is a vital resource for all scholars, students and researchers with an interest in business, management and accounting.

High quality cost estimating gives a business leader confidence to make rational financial decisions. Whether you are a business leader or a cost estimating manager, you have a vested interest in understanding whether you can depend on your organisation's ability to generate accurate cost forecasts and estimates. But how can business leaders have confidence that the cost information that they are being provided with is of high quality? How can a cost estimating manager be sure that their team is providing high quality cost information? QinetiQ's Cost Engineering Health Check is used as a capability benchmarking tool to identify improvement opportunities within their clients' cost estimating capability, enabling them to focus on areas that have the potential to increase their competitiveness. High quality estimating leads to accurate budgets, a reduced potential for cost growth, accurate evaluation of risk exposure, and the opportunity to implement effective earned value management (EVM). The Cost Engineering Health Check employs a standardised competency framework that considers all aspects of cost estimating capability, and provides an objective assessment against both best practice and the industry standard. This framework is based on QinetiQ's long established, tried and tested, Knowledge Based Estimating (KBE) philosophy comprising Data, Tools, People and Process, with additional consideration given to cultural and stakeholder assessments.

This anthology provides readers with a flavour of the development of cost accounting and emerging management accounting literature from 'The Costing Renaissance' to 1952. Many of the issues which were prominent in the middle of the twentieth century are still pressing issues today and received important early treatments. However, a more balanced longitudinal coverage of the relevant material enables readers to trace the development of new attitudes to problems which had been recognized early on and to become aware of the fact that different issues tended to dominate the literature as time went by. The selection bias has favoured material which was covered for the first time or in a new way.

The fourteen papers in this volume, both unpublished and originally published between 1981 and 1990 offer a comprehensive selection of G. H. Lawson's work and discuss the following: assessing economic performance ownership value creation pricing of non-competitive government contracts valuation of a business measurement of corporate performance according to cash flow.

This anthology provides readers with a flavour of the development of cost accounting and emerging management accounting literature from 'The Costing Renaissance' to 1952. Many of the issues which were prominent in the middle of the twentieth century are still pressing issues today and received important early treatments. However, a more balanced longitudinal coverage of the relevant material enables readers to trace the development of new attitudes to problems which had been recognized early on and to become aware of the fact that different issues tended to dominate the literature as time went by. The selection bias has favoured material which was covered for the first time or in a new way.

This special edition of Contemporary Studies in Economic and Financial Analysis offers twenty-three chapters by invited participants in the International Applied Social Science Congress. In these chapters chronical a wide variety of important issues such as: Volatility spillover between conventional stock index and participation index; The Interplay Between Experience, Satisfaction and Positive Word of Mouth: A Study on City Marketing in Afyonkarahisar and more. This international and wide-ranging exploration on different economic systems provides a comprehensive account which brings a wide range of countries to the forefront in terms of both comparability and accountability, this study shines a light on the differences in systems between states, and provides timely and accurate information to equip readers to minimize those differences.

This book provides extensive insights and analysis into pricing models for autonomous manufacturing. Taking a cost engineering approach, it shows how businesses facing technological change can provide visibility to pricing sensitivity and maximize price, and profit in every transaction. The book pulls together the many elements of cost engineering; cost estimation, cost control, business planning and management, profitability analysis, cost risk analysis and project management, planning, and scheduling, and considers the many different approaches and methods for estimating or assessing costs. It aims to help companies with decision making, cost management, and budgeting with respect to product development, and highlights the importance of cost estimation during the early stages of product development. A discussion of appropriate pricing models is also included to determine the most effective course for handling operational costs in autonomous manufacturing systems in order to create a more productive and profitable system. Cost Engineering and Pricing in Autonomous Manufacturing Systems will provide new insights for researchers and students, as well as industrial practitioners interested in applied models which can be employed and implemented in real cases.

Addressing the chronic underestimation of capital and operating costs in urban transportation projects, this book provides a detailed analysis of the cost estimating process using case studies from three U.S. cities and outlines a practical framework for this process. The work goes beyond a simple quantitative approach to explaining cost underestimation and looks at the planning process as a tool for both argumentation and structuring the argumentation. This approach highlights the difficulties in several components of the estimating process and suggests specific and practical actions to address these problems. The proposed framework will strengthen the estimating function and the link between analysis and decision in urban transportation planning. This work will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in transportation planning, urban planning, and transportation engineering.

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History presents a single-volume synthesis of research in this expanding field, exploring and analysing accounting from ancient civilisations to the modern day. No longer perceived as the narrow study of how a mysterious technique was used in past, the scope of accounting history has widened substantially. This revised and updated volume moves beyond the history of accounting technologies, accounting theories and practices and the accountants who applied them. Expert contributors from around the world explore the interfaces between accounting and the economy, society, culture and the polity. Accounting history is shown to offer important insights into such disparate phenomena as the evolution of capitalism, control of labour, gender and family relationships, racial exploitation, the operation of religious organisations, and the functioning of the state. Illuminating the foundation and development of accounting systems, this updated, classic book opens the field to a new generation of accounting scholars and historians around the world.

This book is the first comprehensive methodological guide for accounting researchers on Interventionist Research (IVR). It provides all the fundamental components needed for understanding what IVR is, and how to plan, design, and conduct legitimate intervention studies, which can endure the scrutiny of institutions and peer review. This text systematically opens the 'black box' of an alternative research paradigm seeking to contribute simultaneously to theory and practice, through direct and collaborative engagement with organisations, practitioners, managers and professionals. It mobilises the production of innovative and theoretically grounded research for academe, and of practical relevance or usefulness and interest to the field of practice. Interventionist Research in Accounting: A Methodological Approach unpacks current thinking on IVR to forge a confident path ahead for IVR through adopting a forward-thinking approach. This book recognises the remedial potential of IVR to address the research-practice-relevance gap in accounting research and deliberates the challenges of IVR in accounting. It addresses the design, development, and implementation of interventions, critical to solving real-world problems as well as guiding readers in planning the IVR project including budgetary and ethical aspects, utilising suitable research methods and data collection techniques, and establishing validity and reliability. Further, it offers guidance on selecting and managing the research team and recruiting, accessing, and retaining intervention participants; these two components are crucial to creating collaborative relationships required for effective intervention. This book is a guide serving as a valuable resource for accounting researchers conducting intervention studies, for doctoral and other research students undertaking accounting research, and academics working in universities and business schools or teaching courses in accounting and research methodology.

Practical, easy-to-follow ABC guidelines for small and mid-sized businesses

Incorporating activity-based costing (ABC) concepts into your business without relying on the usual complex ABC jargon can be a daunting task–even for the most experienced accountant. In Activity-Based Costing: Making It Work for Small and Mid-Sized Companies, professional accountant Douglas Hicks shows you how to sharpen your competitive edge while bringing you the "total package" of cost information–not just the computational elements. Using an approach developed while solving problems for small and mid-sized companies, Hicks has created a reader-friendly, comprehensive narrative covering every aspect of the ABC industry, including step-by-step instructions for building a cost accumulation and distribution model for any size business. With examples taken from Fortune 1000 companies, readers will find a wealth of information on ABC features, including:

• The logic behind ABC and its cost flow-down steps
• How to get the maximum benefits from ABC for your small or mid-sized business
• Case studies on emerging cost flow-down structures
• The most appropriate ways to change to multiple costing rates and bases
• Using ABC to perform "what if" analyses
• The danger of measuring costs using generally accepted accounting principles
• Applying decision costing and long-term contracts to your business

If your company is looking to dramatically improve its current cost information systems, this book is a must-read. You can have that crucial competitive edge. Activity-Based Costing: Making It Work for Small and Mid-Sized Companies will show you how.

Philipp Plank analyses the question, what drives the quality of cost-systems and is the quality of cost-systems directly and at best positively related to the firms' performance. In other words, is it worth investing in complex cost allocation systems or are there environmental and/or production settings in which less enhanced systems perform adequately. Using simulations, a benchmark firm (first-best solution) perfectly allocating cost to products is compared to firms implementing heuristic cost-allocation schemes (second-best solution) to identify the profit gap resulting from decisions based on limited information. Into this discussion, the idea of cost-stickiness is integrated, thereby indicating a new planning approach.

* Details how cost accounting systems work and how the resulting information can be used.* Includes a list of the most common costing problems, along with recommended solutions.* Provides case studies on costing issues and sample journal entries for the most common cost entries.* Includes a dictionary of cost accounting terminology.* Includes flowcharts and control point listing for several types of costing systems.

The book introduces pragmatic constructivism as a paradigm for understanding actors' construction of functioning practice and for developing methods and concepts for managing and observing that practice. The book explores, understands and theorises organisational practices as constructed through the activities of all organisational actors. Actors always act under presumptions of a specific actor-world-relation which they continuously construct, adjust and reconstruct in light of new experiences, contexts and communication. The outcome of the actor-world-relation is a reality construction. The reality construction may function successfully or it may be hampered by fictitious and illusionary elements, due to missing or faulty actor-world relations. The thesis is that four dimensions of reality - facts, possibilities, values and communication - must be integrated in the actor-world-relation if the construct is to form a successful basis for effective, functioning actions. Drawing on pragmatic constructivism, the book provides concepts and ideas for studies regarding actors and their use of management accounting models in their construction of organized reality. It concentrates on researching and conceptualizing what creates functioning reality construction. It develops concept and methods for understanding, analysing and managing the actors' reality constructions. It is intended for people who do research on or work actively with developing management accounting.

Although there are numerous books on alternative accounting methods, such as Lean accounting, none focus on the impact of time and how accounting practices can be modified to acknowledge the power of time. This book addresses this need. The Monetary Value of Time: Why Traditional Accounting Systems Make Customers Wait presents a framework for assessing the value of time in terms of organizational strategy and competitive advantage. The framework presented will enable organizations to develop consistent measures and ensure that their cost accounting system isn't motivating behaviors that add to lead time and make customers wait. The framework outlined in this book is relevant to the managerial and cost accounting practices in today's manufacturing environment, which is increasingly moving away from mass production to custom manufacturing. The framework is supported by high-level metrics, which are reinforced by operational metrics. This is supported by accounting data that recognize the value of time. Pricing models that incorporate the concept of time are presented. The book provides many examples of how the use of standard costing and traditional accounting practices in a high-mix/low-volume production environment can produce contradictory or even inaccurate results that form the basis for poor decisions that may actually move your organization farther from its objectives. The book arms readers with options for overcoming traditional barriers by applying direct costs at an item level, while applying overheads at a macro or value stream level. For example, while GAAP requires overhead application for inventory valuation, a common misconception is that overhead must be applied at an item level. In fact, overhead can be absorbed by one journal entry. Demonstrating the linkages between time-based accounting data and meaningful business metrics that drive bottom line results, the book presents methods and metrics that have been successfully applied by the author in manufacturing environments.

The Groundwork of Company Valuation for First-time Buyers and Sellers

A Basic Guide for Valuing a Company has helped thousands of first-time buyers and sellers realize a fair, substantiated value for small businesses. Now in its Second Edition, this book covers common valuation techniques and myths, tips for determining tangible and intangible values, sample balance sheets and income statements, and approaches to valuing start-up technology and dot-com businesses.

This nuts-and-bolts guide addresses publicly traded and privately held firms, including traditional brick-and-mortar companies and the intellectual property industry. With a clear, concise writing style, the author walks readers through common practices for valuing, from collecting data to arriving at a saleable figure for all types of businesses, including professional practice, manufacturing, wholesale distributors, and a variety of retail operations. This new edition features perspectives on nontraditional valuation practices, guidance for using an excess earnings method, and an abundance of case studies from actual companies.

In order to make the most profitable decisions, before putting a business on the market or making an offer to acquire one, every beginning business purchaser and seller should read A Basic Guide for Valuing a Company, Second Edition.

Take control of overhead, budgeting, and profitability with cost accounting Cost accounting is one of the most important skills in business, and its popularity as a course in undergraduate and graduate business and management programs speaks to its usefulness. But if you've ever felt intimidated by the subject's jargon or concepts, you can stop worrying. Cost accounting is for everyone! In Cost Accounting For Dummies, you'll be taken step-by-step through the basic and advanced topics found in a typical cost accounting class, from how to define costs and how to allocate them to products or services. You'll learn how to determine if a capital expenditure is worth it and how to design a budget model that forecasts changes in costs based on activity levels. Whether you're a student in your first cost accounting course or a professional trying to get a grip on your books, you'll benefit from: Simple methods to evaluate business risks and rewards Explanations of how to manage and control costs during periods of business change and pivots Descriptions of how to use cost accounting to price IT projects Cost Accounting For Dummies is the gold standard in getting a firm grasp on the challenging and rewarding world of cost accounting.

Principles, Process and Practice of Professional Number Juggling (Volume 1 of the Working Guides to Estimating & Forecasting series) sets the scene of TRACEability and good estimate practice that is followed in the other volumes in this series of five working guides. It clarifies the difference between an Estimating Process, Procedure, Approach, Method and Technique. It expands on these definitions of Approach (Top-down, Bottom-up and 'Ethereal') and Method (Analogy, Parametric and 'Trusted Source') and discusses how these form the basis of all other means of establishing an estimate. This volume also underlines the importance of 'data normalisation' in any estimating procedure, and demonstrates that the Estimating by Analogy Method, in essence, is a simple extension of Data Normalisation. The author looks at simple measures of assessing the maturity or health of an estimate, and offers a means of assessing a spreadsheet for any inherent risks or errors that may be introduced by failing to follow good practice in spreadsheet design and build. This book provides a taster of the more numerical techniques covered in the remainder of the series by considering how an estimator can potentially exploit Benford's Law (traditionally used in Fraud Detection) to identify systematic bias from third party contributors. It will be a valuable resource for estimators, engineers, accountants, project risk specialists as well as students of cost engineering.

This text is adapted from Drury's Management and Cost Accounting, and is tailored to the needs of a one-year course. It should be of interest to professional and undergraduate students taking a first course in costing, cost management, management accounting or cost and management accounting.