CERTIFIED MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANT EXAM
Budget - Answers -A planning tool, control tool, motivational tool, and a communication
tool. Helps communicate to all employees what goals the firm is trying to accomplish.
Incremental goals - Answers -must be achieved each month or week. especcially
important in seasonal business
controllability - Answers -Extent to which a manager can influence activities and related
revenues and costs.
Controllable costs - Answers -Costs that are under the discretion of a particular
manager
Incremental unit-time learning model - Answers -Learning curve analysis. Projects the
reduction in the incremental time it takes to complete the last task. Time spent on all
units so far is accumulated and the average taken.
Time series(trend) analysis - Answers -Projects future trends based on past experience.
Simple moving average - Answers -Relatively stable demand. Not seasonal. Data points
are summed and divided by the number of time periods.
Weighted moving average - Answers -Gives each data point a weight indicating its
relative importance in determining the outcome.
Exponential smoothing - Answers -Widespread technique for making projections
becuase it requires les data to be kept on hand than the moving average methods
Exponential smoothing steps - Answers -1. Develop some forcasts using a more data-
ntensive method, such as one of the two moving average methods
2. Set alpha btnw 0 and 1. Closer to 1, the more weight is put on recent data.
3. Calclate next periods forcast. Each forecast is the sum of the current periods actual
results multiplied by the smoothing factor, and the current periods forcast multiplied by
alpha's complement.
Expected value - Answers -Associates a dollar amount with each of the possible
poutcomes of a probability distribution. The outcome yielding the highest expected
value is the optimal alternative. Calculated by multiplying the probability of each
outcome by its payoff and summing the products.
Noncontrollable costs - Answers -Costs to which another level of the organization has
committed, removing the manager's discretion.
Budget - Answers -A planning tool, control tool, motivational tool, and a communication
tool. Helps communicate to all employees what goals the firm is trying to accomplish.
Incremental goals - Answers -must be achieved each month or week. especcially
important in seasonal business
controllability - Answers -Extent to which a manager can influence activities and related
revenues and costs.
Controllable costs - Answers -Costs that are under the discretion of a particular
manager
Incremental unit-time learning model - Answers -Learning curve analysis. Projects the
reduction in the incremental time it takes to complete the last task. Time spent on all
units so far is accumulated and the average taken.
Time series(trend) analysis - Answers -Projects future trends based on past experience.
Simple moving average - Answers -Relatively stable demand. Not seasonal. Data points
are summed and divided by the number of time periods.
Weighted moving average - Answers -Gives each data point a weight indicating its
relative importance in determining the outcome.
Exponential smoothing - Answers -Widespread technique for making projections
becuase it requires les data to be kept on hand than the moving average methods
Exponential smoothing steps - Answers -1. Develop some forcasts using a more data-
ntensive method, such as one of the two moving average methods
2. Set alpha btnw 0 and 1. Closer to 1, the more weight is put on recent data.
3. Calclate next periods forcast. Each forecast is the sum of the current periods actual
results multiplied by the smoothing factor, and the current periods forcast multiplied by
alpha's complement.
Expected value - Answers -Associates a dollar amount with each of the possible
poutcomes of a probability distribution. The outcome yielding the highest expected
value is the optimal alternative. Calculated by multiplying the probability of each
outcome by its payoff and summing the products.
Noncontrollable costs - Answers -Costs to which another level of the organization has
committed, removing the manager's discretion.
