Responsibility accounting

  

Responsibility accounting is dividing into organization and similar units, each of everyone is to be assigned particular responsibilities. These units may be in the form of divisions, segments, departments, branches, product lines and so on. Each department is comprised of individuals who are responsible for particular tasks or managerial functions. The managers of various departments should ensure that the people in their department are doing well to achieve the goal. Responsibility accounting refers to the various concepts and tools used by managerial accountants to measure the performance of people and departments in order to ensure that the achievement of the goals set by the top management. It represents a method of measuring the performances of various divisions of an organization. The test to identify the division is that the operating performance is separately identifiable and measurable in some way that is of practical significance to the management. Responsibility accounting collects and reports planned and actual accounting information about the inputs and outputs of responsibility centers.

Responsibility

Responsibility accounting lies on the responsibility centers. A responsibility centre is a sub unit of an organization under the control of a manager who is held responsible for the activities of that centre.

The responsibility centers are classified into three category:

Í Cost Centers

Í Profit Centers

Í Investment centers

Cost Centers

Cost center is measured inputs only not measured the outputs of money. In a cost centre records only costs incurred by the centre/unit/division, but the revenues earned  are excluded form its purview. It means that a cost centre is a segment whose financial performance is measured in terms of cost without taking into consideration its attainments in terms of "output". The costs are the planning and control data in cost canters. The performance of the managers is evaluated by comparing the costs incurred with the budgeted costs. The management focuses on the cost variances for ensuring proper control.

Profit Centers

The manager responsible for both Costs and Revenues it is called a profit centre. The profit center measured both inputs and outputs of money. The difference between revenues and costs represents profit. The term "revenue" is used in a different sense altogether. According to generally accepted principles of accounting, revenues are recognized only when sales are made to external customers.

The profit of all the departments so calculated will not necessarily be equivalent to the profit of the entire organization. The variance will arise because costs which are not attributable to any single department are excluded from the computation of the department's profits and the same are adjusted while determining the profits of the whole organization. Profit provides more effective appraisal of the manager's performance. The manager of the profit centre is highly motivated in his decision-making relating to inputs and outputs so that profits can be maximized. The profit centre approach cannot be uniformly applied to all responsibility centers. The following are the criteria to be considered for making a responsibility centre into a profit centre. A profit centre must maintain additional record keeping to measure inputs and outputs in monetary terms. When a responsibility centre renders only services to other departments, e.g., internal audit, it cannot be made a profit centre. A profit centre will gain more meaning and significance only when the divisional managers of responsibility centers have empowered adequately in their decision making relating to quality and quantity of outputs and also their relation to costs.

Investment Centers

The manager is responsible for costs and revenues as well as for the investment in assets, it is called an Investment Centre. In an investment centre, the performance is measured not by profits alone, but is related to investments effected. The manager of an investment centre is always interested to earn a satisfactory return. The return on investment is usually referred to as ROI, serves as a criterion for the performance evaluation of the manager of an investment centre.

Transfer Pricing

The profit centers are used, when the transfer prices become necessary in order to determine the separate performances of both the 'buying profit centers. the measurement of profit in a profit centre is further complicated by the problem of transfer prices. The transfer price represents the value of goods/services furnished by a profit centre to other responsibility centers within an organization. When internal exchanges of goods and services take place among the different divisions of an organization, they have to be expressed in monetary terms which are otherwise called the transfer price. Thus, transfer pricing is the process of determining the price at which goods are transferred from one profit centre to another profit centre within the same company.

In certain circumstances, transfer pricing may have an indirect effect on overall company profitability by influencing the decisions made at divisional level. The fixation of appropriate transfer price is another problem faced by the profit centers. The transfer price forms revenue for the selling division and an element of cost of the buying division. Since the transfer price has a bearing on the revenues, costs and profits or responsibility canters, the need for determination of transfer prices becomes all the more important.

These objectives are considered for setting-out a transfer price:

Ø Division of Autonomy : The prices should seek to maintain the maximum divisional autonomy so that the benefits, of decentralization  are maintained. The profits of one division should not be dependent on the actions of other divisions.

Ø Goal congruence: The prices should be set so that the divisional management's desire to maximize divisional earrings is consistent with the objectives of the company as a whole. The transfer prices should not encourage suboptimal decision-making.

Ø Performance appraisal: The prices should enable reliable assessments to be made of divisional performance.

Transfer Pricing Methods

 Market based transfer pricing

The market is when exists outside the firm for the intermediate product and where the market is competitive then the use of market price as the transfer price between divisions will generally lead to optimal decision-making.

Cost based pricing

The systems of  Cost based transfer pricing methods  are commonly used because the conditions for setting ideal market prices frequently do not exist; for example, there may be no intermediate market which does exist may be imperfect. Providing that the required information is available, a rule which would lead to optimal decision for the firm as a whole would be to transfer at marginal cost up to the point of transfer, plus any opportunity cost to the firm as whole.

Full cost transfer pricing

This variant , and the method which is full costs plus a profit mark-up, has the disadvantage that suboptimal decision-making may occur particularly when there is idle capacity within the firm. The full cost  is likely to be treated by the buying division as an input variable cost so that external selling price decisions, may not be set at levels which are optimal as far as the firm as a whole is concerned.

Variable cost transfer pricing

Under this system transfers would be made at the variable costs up to the point of transfer. Assuming that the variable cost is a good approximation of economic marginal cost then this system would enable decisions to be made which would be in the interests of the firm as a whole. However, variable cost based prices will result in a loss for the setting division so performance appraisal becomes meaningless and motivation will be reduced.

 Negotiated transfer pricing

 Negotiated transfer prices could be set by negotiation between the buying and selling divisions. This would be appropriate if it could be assumed that such negotiations would result in decisions which were in the interests of the firm as a whole and which were acceptable to the parties concerned.

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