In preparing responsibility accounting reports, companies use two basic methods to handle revenue or expense items. In the first approach, only those items over which a manager has direct control are included in the responsibility report for that management level. Any revenue and expense items that cannot be directly controlled are not included. The second approach is to include all revenue and expense items that can be traced directly or allocated indirectly to a particular manager, whether or not they are controllable. This second method represents a full-cost approach, which means all costs of a given area are disclosed in a single report. When this approach is used, care must be taken to separate controllable from noncontrollable items to differentiate those items for which a manager can and should be held responsible.

For accounting reports to be of maximum benefit, they must be timely. That is, accountants should prepare reports as soon as possible after the end of the performance measurement period. Timely reporting allows prompt corrective action to be taken. When reports are delayed excessively, they lose their effectiveness as control devices. For example, a report on the previous month’s operations that is not received until the end of the current month is virtually useless for analyzing poor performance areas and taking corrective action.

Companies also should issue reports regularly in order for managers to spot trends. Then, appropriate management action can be initiated before major problems occur. Regular reporting allows managers to rely on reports and become familiar with their contents.

Firms should make the format of their responsibility reports relatively simple and easy to read. Confusing terminology should be avoided. Where appropriate, expressing results in physical units may be more familiar and understandable to some managers. To assist management in quickly spotting budget variances, companies can report both budgeted (expected) and actual amounts. A budget variance is the difference between the budgeted and actual amounts of an item. Because variances highlight problem areas (exceptions), they are helpful in applying the management-by-exception principle. To help management evaluate performance to date, responsibility reports often include both a current period and year-to-date analysis.

Example

Assume a large clothing store called Marcy’s has four management levels—the president, vice president of operations, store manager, and department manager. In this section, we show that a responsibility report would be prepared for each management level. We will begin with the lowest level, the Men’s department manager, and work our way up to the president. We start at the lowest level because the totals from each level will be reported in the next highest level.

Only the individual manager’s controllable expenses are contained in these reports. For example, the store manager’s report includes only totals from the Men’s Clothing Department manager’s report. In turn, the report to the vice president includes only totals from the store manager’s report, and so on. Detailed data from the lower levels are summarized or condensed and reported at the next higher level.

You can see that at each level, more and more costs become controllable. Also, the company introduces controllable costs not included on lower level reports into the reports for levels 3, 2, and 1. The only store cost not included at the store manager’s level is the store manager’s salary because it is noncontrollable by that store manager. It is, however, controllable by the store manager’s supervisor, the vice president of operations.

Based on an analysis of these reports, the Men’s Clothing Department manager probably would take immediate action to see why supplies and overtime were significantly over budget this month. The store manager may ask the department manager what the problems were and whether they are now under control. The vice president may ask the same question of the store manager. The president may ask each vice president why the budget was exceeded this month and what corrective action has been taken.

Now, check your understanding of Interpreting budget variances with regard to directing and controlling.