1. Financial Control Chapter 11 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved.

2. What Is Financial Control? Financial control involves the use of financial measures to assess organization and management performance The focus of attention could be a product, aproduct line, an organization department, a division, or the entire organization Financial control provides a counterpoint to the Balanced Scorecard view that links financial results to its presumed drivers Focuses only on financial results 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 3. Financial Control This chapter focuses on broader issues in financial control, including the evaluation of organization units and of the entire organization Managers use and consider: Internal financial controls Information used internally and not distributed to outsiders External financial controls Developed by outside analysts to assess organization performance 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 4. Decentralization vs Centralization Decentralization is the process of delegating decision-making authority to frontline decision makers Centralization is best suited to organizations that: Are well adapted to stable environments Have no major information differences between thecorporate headquarters and the employees Have no changes in the organizations environmentthat require adaptation by the organization 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 5. Changing Environment In response to increasing competitive pressures and the opening up of former monopolies to competition, many organizations are changing the way they are organized and the way they do businessThis is necessary because they must be able to change quickly in a world where technology, customer tastes, and competitors strategies are constantly changing 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 6. Becoming More Adaptive Being adaptive generally requires that the organizations senior management delegate or decentralize decision-making responsibility to more people in the organizationDecentralization: Allows motivated and well-trained organizationmembers to identify changing customer tastes quickly Gives front-line employees the authority and responsibility to develop plans to react to these changes 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 7. From Task to Results Control In decentralization, control moves from task control to results control From where people are told what to do To where people are told to use their skill,knowledge, and creativity to achieve organization objectives 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 8. Responsibility Centers A responsibility center is an organization unit for which a manager is held accountableA responsibility center is like a small businessBut it is not completely autonomous Its manager is asked to run that small business toachieve the objectives of the larger organization The manager and supervisor establish goals for their responsibility center 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 9. Coordinating Responsibility Centers For an organization to be successful, the activities of its responsibility units must be coordinatedSales, manufacturing, and customer service activities are often very disjointed in large organizations, resulting in diminished performance In general, nonfinancial performance measuresdetect coordination problems better than financial measures 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 10. Responsibility Centers and Financial Control Organizations use financial control to provide a summary measure of how well their systems of operations control are workingWhen organizations use a single index to provide a broad assessment of operations, they frequently use a financial number because these are measures that their shareholders use to evaluate the companys overall performance 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 11. Responsibility Center Types The accounting report prepared for a responsibility center reflects the degree to which the responsibility center manager controls revenue, cost, profit, or return on investmentFour types of responsibility centers: Cost centers - Accountable for costs only Revenue centers - Accountable for revenues only Profit centers - Accountable for revenues and costs Investment centers - Accountable for investments, revenues, and costs 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 12. Cost Center Organizations evaluate the performance of cost center employees by comparing the centers actual costs with budgeted cost levels for the amount and type of work done Other critical performance measures may include: Quality Response time Meeting production schedules Employee motivation Employee safety Respect for the organizations ethical and 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved.environmental commitments 13. Revenue Center A responsibility center whose members control revenues but do not control either the manufacturing or acquisition cost of the product or service they sell or the level of investment made in the responsibility centerSome revenue centers control price, the mix of stock on hand, and promotional activities 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 14. Costs Incurred by Revenue Centers Most revenue centers incur sales and marketing costs and have varying degrees of control over those costsIt is common in such situations to deduct the responsibility centers traceable costs from its sales revenue to compute the centers net revenue Traceable costs may include salaries, advertisingcosts, and selling costs 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 15. Profit Center A responsibility center where managers and other employees control both the revenues and the costs of the products or services they deliverA profit center is like an independent business, except that senior management, not the responsibility center manager, controls the level of investment in the responsibility centerMost units of chain operations are treated as profit centers 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 16. Investment Center A responsibility center in which the manager and other employees control revenues, costs, and the level of investment in the responsibility center For example, General Electric has diverse business units Including Energy, Technology Infrastructure, GE Capital,Home & Business Solutions, and NBC Universal Senior executives at General Electric developed a management system that evaluated these businesses as independent operationsin effect as investment centers 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 17. Using Segment Margin Reports Despite the problems of responsibility center accounting, the profit measure is so comprehensive and pervasive that organizations prefer to treat many of their organization units as profit centersBecause most organizations are integrated operations, the first problem designers of profit center accounting systems must confront is the interactions between the various profit center units 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 18. The Segment Margin Report A common form of the Segment Margin Report for an organization that is divided into responsibility centers includes one column for each profit center 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 19. Evaluating the Segment Margin Report What can we learn from the segment margin report? The contribution margin for each responsibility center is the value added by the manufacturing or service-creating process before considering costs that are not proportional to volume A units segment margin is an estimate of the long-term effect of the responsibility centers shutdown on the organization after fixed capacity is redeployed or sold off 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 20. Evaluating the Segment Margin Report The units income is the long-term effect on corporate income after corporate-level fixed capacity is allowed to adjustThe difference between the units segment margin and income reflects the effect of adjusting for business-sustaining costs 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 21. Good or Bad Numbers Organizations use different approaches to evaluate whether the segment margin numbers are good or bad Two sources of comparative information are: Past performance Comparable organizationsEvaluations include comparisons of: Absolute amounts Relative amounts 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 22. The DuPont System The DuPont system of financial control focuses on ROI and breaks that measure into two components: A return measure that assesses efficiency A turnover measure that assesses productivityIt is possible to compare these individual and group efficiency measures with those of similar organization units or competitors 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 23. The DuPont System The productivity ratio of sales to investment allows development of separate turnover measures for the key items of investment The elements of working capital Inventories, accounts receivable, cash The elements of permanent investment Equipment and buildingsComparisons of these turnover ratios with those of similar units or those of competitors suggest where improvements are required 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 24. Assessing Productivity Using Financial Control The most widely accepted definition of productivity is the ratio of output over inputOrganizations develop productivity measures for all factors of production, including people, raw materials, and equipment 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 25. Questioning the ROI Approach Despite its popularity, ROI has been criticized as a means of financial control: Too narrow for effective control Profit-seeking organizations should makeinvestments in order of declining profitability until the marginal cost of capital of the last dollar invested equals the marginal return generated by that dollar 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 26. Calculating Residual Income Residual = incomeOperating incomeAverage operating assets(Minimum required rate of return)This computation differs from ROI. ROI measures operating income earned relative to the investment in average operating assets. Residual income measures operating income earned less the minimum required return on average operating assets. 27. Using Residual Income Residual income equals income less the economic cost of the investment used to generate that income If a divisions income is $13.5 million and thedivision uses $100 million of capital, which has an average cost of 10%: Residual Income = Income Cost of capital Residual Income = $13.5m ($100m x 10%) Residual Income = $3.5m 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 28. Using Residual Income Like ROI, residual income evaluates income relative to the level of investment required to earn that incomeUnlike ROI, residual income does not motivate managers to turn down investments that are expected to earn more than their cost of capitalStern Stewart developed Economic Value Added (EVA), which is a refinement of the residual income data 2012 Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved.