Fundamentals of Cost Accounting 3rd Edition by William N. Lanen, Shannon W. Anderson, Michael Maher

Exercise 9

Airlines are well known for using complex pricing structures. For example, it is often (but not always) less expensive to buy a ticket in advance than it is on the day of the flight. However, if the airline offered this lower (“discount”) fare for all seats, it could not remain in business. Why offer fares with different prices? What, if any, costs are different?

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Accounting systems

Purpose of creating accounting information system is to provide information for decision making of accounting users. Users can be classified as primary users like investors, government, creditors etc. and secondary users like internal including managers or employees. Accounting systems are also classified as financial and costing accounting system also differentiate between the users like primary and secondary ones.

Cost accounting

This system is designed for inhouse or internal managers and their decision making. Cost accounting information is not needed for comparison with other companies. This information is commonly used in financial accounting also, but it is primarily used by company managers for their decision making. It is important that cost accounting information is relevant for the decision making of the manager.