Cost Accounting, ACCT3310-001, Spring 2014 M 7:10-10:10 p.m.. Main Campus, Fogelman Classroom Bldg 125 Syllabus Version 2, January 15, 2013. Changes are highlighted. Professor: Dr. Charles D. Bailey Office Phone: (901) 678-5614 Office: 212 FCBE Web site: www.profbailey.com/acct3310/ email: cbailey2@memphis.edu Office Hours: Monday 5:30 6:30 p.m; Wednesday 4:00 5:30 and 6:00 7:00 p.m. or by appointment. Course Description/Objectives The course is designed for Accounting majors, and you will learn considerable detail about the generation and use of accounting information. Reasoning is much more important than rote memory, and verbal skills are just as important as calculation skills. Management (or Cost) accounting is concerned mainly with the use of accounting data by managers to plan and control operations and to evaluate personnel and operations of the firm. The focus is on planning, decision-making, and control by the organization and on the accounting systems that managers rely upon in their decisions about resource allocation, performance evaluation, etc. The role of management accountants today is primarily as a member of the management team involved in decision making not just producing financial reports. We are interested mainly in information for managers decision-making, but we also study the assignment of costs to products as necessary for financial reporting. This course will demand at least 6 hours/week of you in addition to the class time a total commitment of at least 9 hours/week for this class. Please sure you have these resources available. Are you prepared to devote about nine hrs./week to this course, plus travel toand-from class? Course Prerequisites The prerequisite is a C- or better in ACCT 2020. In addition, students seeking a degree in the Fogelman College of Business and Economics must also meet all of the prerequisites outlined in the current University of Memphis undergraduate bulletin. You are responsible for ensuring that you meet the course prerequisites. An examination of students prerequisites will occur after the final add date, and anyone not meeting the prerequisites will be dropped at that time. Note: A student may not attempt the same course more than three times (including withdrawal, W grades!). See the "Academic Regulations" website at memphis.edu/ugcatalog/acad_reg/standards.php for this and other important information. Required Materials The following items are required for the course: Textbook: Lanen, Anderson, and Maher, Fundamentals of Cost Accounting, McGraw- Hill Irwin, Fourth Edition, 2014, ISBN 9780078025525 (May be purchased as an ebook, 1
if you at the same time buy it online direct from McGraw-Hill together with Connect; see below how to do this.) McGraw-Hill CONNECT Connect Accounting Plus is packaged free with the hardback textbook if the textbook is purchased through the University or Tiger bookstore. With Connect Accounting Plus, you also get 24/7 online access to an ebook which is an online edition of the text. What s included is an access code that you ll need to register with Connect at our McGraw-Hill class web-site. The Plus means it also includes an electronic version of the textbook. The URL for our class web-site is: http://connect.mcgraw-hill.com/class/c_bailey_cost_accounting_professor_bailey_spring_2014. There you should first click Register Now. After answering some contact info you can either: 1) register with the Access Code packaged with the Bookstore book, 2) purchase Connect separately for $60, or 3) purchase Connect Plus ebook for $120. Homework on Connect Using CONNECT, homework answers for a selected number of problems and exercises are submitted and graded on-line and this homework counts 15% of your grade. Numerous other exercises and problems will be available online as well, so you can check your work, but they will not count as part of your grade. Homework due dates will be posted on CONNECT. Homework will close at one minute before midnight on the Due Date. Access to that chapter s homework will be locked after that time. First work your assigned homework questions in good form on paper OR work them in Excel. Work the problems in the manner shown within the body of each chapter. Save this work for yourself for later Exam study and review. CONNECT is for grading; your original work is much better for studying for the problem driven Exams. Submit selected answers for grading to Connect at the URL above. PowerPoint Slides and other student aid materials from McGraw-Hill are available for each chapter of the textbook at http://www.mhhe.com/lanen4e. I Also will post narrated slides from my lectures after each lecture. Instructional Assistance Tutoring is offered free in the ESP Business Learning Center, FCBE room 256. Hours change each semester and are posted on the door. If you are not on campus, ESP Online Tutoring is available free for all accounting students Sunday Thursday from 8:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. You may post questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at http://www.memphis.edu/esp/onlinetutoring.php. If you are struggling with the class material, please email me or come by. Should you get stuck on a homework problem, please email me so I can offer assistance. I am here to help you succeed! 2
Web Site and email I will make materials available to you at www.profbailey.com/acct3310/, elearn.memphis.edu (where grades will appear and probably some discussion groups), and the McGraw-Hill textbook website (URL on previous page). I welcome email communications and normally answer promptly, even over the weekend. I also expect you to stay in touch daily with your own email. Often I respond to a person who emails an important question, and I copy the rest of the class. Other information, hints about problems assigned, etc., may come by email. Class Time Our once/week evening class poses a huge challenge. As you will see from the schedule, you and I must be organized and prepared to deal with a lot of material at each class meeting. In order to understand and remember anything, one needs a mental framework into which the information fits. Psychologists call this framework a Schema. Our class discussions are to complement, not replace, the textbook. The basic concepts are well presented in the textbook and the supplemental web materials, so we will concentrate in class on deepening and refining your understanding. The textbook is your main learning resource, and you must take charge of your learning. I cannot tell you everything you need to know. However, I will be available to you by email to answer questions as you study and practice during the week. To benefit from my lectures and the discussion, you must read the assigned material and work on the exercises before class. That way, you will have a general idea a schema. If you have prepared, the class discussion will allow you to clear up questions and really consolidate your knowledge. If you have not prepared, the class time won t be well spent, and you will leave frustrated. A few things that I mention in class may not be in the textbook, but may appear on exams. By having read the book, you will recognize such material. If you are unavoidably absent, get notes from a trusted classmate or see me. I also hope to be able to record the lectures for your review. Guidelines for Assignments Except for the first class meeting, do the assignments before class. For any technique you read about, be sure you understand the purpose: How does it fit into your understanding of the business world? Who would use it? Why? Why would the result be useful? Don t just ask what numbers to add, multiply, etc. but why. When working a problem, decide what its main point is. What does it demonstrate? Sometimes the answer is simply to show how some basic calculation is made. The more interesting problems, however, demonstrate some phenomenon that was discussed in the chapter. If you reach an impasse on a problem after studying the related material, note why you are puzzled. You will help our class discussion tremendously by doing this. 3
Exams Your grade will be heavily on in-class exams. Except for a small component based on homework, your grade will be based on the knowledge demonstrated on these exams. As with the CPA exam, the questions will be mostly multiple-choice. Well-designed multiple-choice questions can accurately measure knowledge, and I have some expertise in designing valid questions. 1 The questions will not come directly from a test bank that anyone can purchase, and I will take great care to prevent cheating, so that you can be sure everyone is being treated fairly and the scores are meaningful. We will have three in-depth exams during the semester, plus the final exam. The questions on exams will not be exactly like the problems you already have seen, and may not appear similar, because I will be asking you to apply your knowledge in new situations. I will, however, make some of my old exams available to you for pre-testing yourself. The final exam will be about 50% cumulative. This means that I will re-ask questions from previous exams in a slightly modified form not bring up material that wasn't tested originally. If you understand the principles needed to solve or answer items on the earlier tests (which you will get to keep), you will be ready for the retest. Only a simple, free-standing calculator with basic functions (add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root) is allowed for exams. I have a few to loan. No programmable or memory calculators, and no cellphone calculators. You may not have access to cellphones and other electronics during exams. Grading I strive to give you regular feedback, letting you know the grade you may expect given your performance to date. Grading for the course will be on the traditional scale of 90 100=A range, 80 89=B range, etc. Within each letter grade category, I will assign a + or - to those in the top or bottom three points (for example, 98 100= A+, 90 92 = A-). Connect Homework* 15% Exam 1, Part a** 10% Exam 1, Part b 10% Exam 2 20% Exam 3 20% Comprehensive Final Exam 25% Total 100% No extra work can ethically be allowed unless it's assigned for the whole class. This syllabus represents our entire agreement concerning your evaluations. * Certain homework assignments for each chapter will be graded. They must be completed by the due date, on the textbook website, and you will receive immediate feedback on the grades 1 C. Bailey, J. Karcher, and B. Clevenger, A Comparison of the Quality of Multiple-Choice Questions from the CPA Exam and Textbook Test Banks. Accounting Educators Journal 10 (1998): 12 28. 4
**I have split the first exam into two parts, to help you become accustomed to the test methods and procedures. It is possible that other exams (especially the final) could be split up, as well. Before assigning course grades, I will carefully review students at the top of each range for a possible lowering of the cutoff point (additional curve). Knowledge of you from class participation and personal discussions would be helpful at this stage. Ethical Behavior I believe that most students will behave ethically, and I try very hard to prevent cheating and remove temptations from the few who might cheat. I hope the vast majority of students will appreciate the strict rules in place during exams, to ensure against even the appearance of cheating. The Office of Student Conduct website at memphis.edu/studentconduct/misconduct.htm lays out your basic responsibilities. I look forward to working with you this semester! Please see me whenever you have questions or concerns. Emailed questions are welcome, and I ll share answers with the class when appropriate. 5
Preliminary Schedule. Details of assignments will be forthcoming. Date 2014 Exam Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 11 Ch 13 Ch 16 Ch 17 27-Jan 3-Feb 10-Feb 17-Feb 24-Feb 3-Mar 10-Mar 17-Mar 24-Mar 31-Mar Ch 7-9 7-Apr 14-Apr 21-Apr 28-Apr *** 5-May Exam1a, Ch 1& 2 Exam 1b, Ch 3 Ch 4-6 Comprehensive Final exam Catch up & Review = Exercises and Problems ***Consider splitting final exam into two parts, giving part on April 28th. 6