As the environment changes, internal accounting and reporting should be changed to reflect that new environment and provide information that is more relevant to managers. In most companies, as we shall see, this adaptation has not occurred or has greatly lagged changes.

Development of Cost Accounting

Accounting has been around since exchanges first began taking place, but until the 19th century, few people were involved in financial reckonings and internal accounting was mostly conducted visually by owners and managers. With the onset of the industrial revolution and the growth of large companies, accounting became more important and cost accounting began to be developed to control large organization chaos (Kaplan, 1984; Cooper, 2000; Antonelli et al., 2006; McLean, 2006).

Since the industrial revolution began first in Great Britain, their engineers and accountants were the first to recognize the need for cost/management accounting (Fleischman and Parker, 1997; McLean, 2006; Edwards and Boyns, 2009), but their accounting developments were not publicized (Fleischman and Parker, 1997). In the United States, modern cost/management accounting began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Tyson, 1993), especially with the introduction of mass production.1 The scientific management movement, supported by the theories of Frederick Taylor2 (1911, 1967), Walter Shewhart (1931, 1980), and Mary Parker Follet's enlightened approach to management (Follett and Sheldon, 2003), drove the development of supporting cost/management accounting by engineers and accountants such as Alexander Hamilton Church (Litterer, 1961; Jelinek, 1980), who railed against "averaging" production overhead costs over all jobs or products produced and insisted that all production costs must be assigned to orders or products (Church, 1908). In a two-stage process, overhead typically is assigned first to departments and then to jobs or products passing through the department.

Business Environment, First Half of the 20th Century

Frederick Taylor's theories, while not universally accepted, were widely believed and practiced by companies during the early decades of the 20th century (Kanigel, 1997). Business schools, including Harvard Business School (Cruikshank, 1987) began teaching Taylor's scientific management.

By the 1930s, most large manufacturers had adopted some form of manufacturing overhead allocation, but standard costs and related detailed variance analysis did not come into widespread use until after World War II (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). Rather than being developed to control manufacturing costs, the original purpose of variance analysis was to value inventories and derive income statement costs (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). This is because generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) require that actual (not standard) costs appear on the balance sheet and the income statement and standard costs, plus favorable variances or minus unfavorable variances, equal actual costs.

During World War II, the demand for war supplies fueled widespread implementation of mass production (Grudens, 1997). Following the war, companies rushed to fulfill pent-up consumer demand, and some companies used standard costs and variance analysis to control production costs (McFarland, 1950; Vangermeersch and Schwarzback, 2005).

Business Environment, Second Half of the 20th Century

During the 30 years following World War II, U.S. companies basically followed the same strategy of cost-conscious mass production. In addition, the premier department in schools of business, those drawing the most intelligent students and wielding the most political power, slowly switched from accounting to finance.

During the 1960s and probably much earlier, Harvard Business School began teaching MBA students how to manage by the numbers, meaning using a company's financial records and other formulas and models developed in finance (Peters and Waterman, 1982, 30) to manage the company. While there were cautions published about the formulas' complex and fragile treatment of uncertainty in the development of financial models and the overreliance on the skills of MBAs (Hayes and Abernathy, 1980, 67; Peters and Waterman, 1982, 3133; Johnson and Kaplan, 1987, 15, 125126), the predominance of finance departments over accounting departments in both academia and industry gradually spread across the United States and throughout the world during almost the next two decades.3 The focus of the 1980s on behavioral consequences of the formulistic approach to business decisions lasted about a decade; by the 1990s, though, business was back to using formulas and models, along with new continuous improvement methodologies (Dearlove and Crainer) in order to regain ground lost to international competitors.4 This movement no doubt was inspired and certainly facilitated by consulting firms who found ingenious ways to convince management that their assistance was required (Stewart, 2009).

Accounting's Response to a 20th Century Changing Environment

Management accounting, for most companies, barely noticed the changes occurring in business due to their general absorption with other accounting areas (e.g., financial, tax, auditing) and most especially GAAP accounting for external reporting (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987, 214, 125). However, it became obvious during the 1980s that traditional accounting and accounting reports had lost their relevance for internal decisions (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987).5Fully absorbed manufacturing costs, including variable and fixed costs of production (whether actual or standard costs), accumulated for external reporting purposes typically do not provide information needed by managers for operating decisions.

Some solutions to the irrelevance of management accounting information have been known for a number of years, but have not been widely accepted and practiced. In addition, newer solutions recently have been proposed (Kaplan and Norton, 1992; Johnson and Broms, 2000; Smith, 2000; Cunningham and Fiume, 2003; Oliver, 2004; Van Veen-Dirks and Molenaar, 2009). The most well-known proposed accounting solutions are discussed in the following sections.

Direct or Variable Costing Income Statement

Direct or variable costing6 (where all costs are divided into fixed and variable components that are then recorded in separate accounts), however, has been included in textbooks since at least the 1960s (Dopuch and Birnberg, 1969, Chapter 15) and has been covered in virtually every cost and management accounting textbook since that time (Hilton, 2009, Chapter 8; Garrison, Noreen, and Brewer, 2010, Chapter 7). The basic format begins with revenues earned, then subtracts all variable costs to provide contribution margin (sometimes called gross margin). From contribution margin, all fixed costs (both manufacturing and general, selling, and administrative) are deducted to arrive at operating income. This method is not acceptable for external financial statements, however, and has not been broadly accepted.

Direct or variable costing is presented in all cost and managerial accounting textbooks as a method of periodic reporting and for providing information for decision makers. The basic idea is that revenue, minus all variable costs (basically equivalent to out-of-pocket costs), is subtotaled as contribution margin. Fixed costs, that must be incurred each period, are then subtracted from contribution margin to find operating income. While contribution margin may be used to find a contribution margin per constraining unit (discussed later), this topic is treated independent of the direct costing income statement. In addition, many accountants were taught that direct labor, the cost of workers actually transforming a company's product ("hands-on" work) is a variable cost, as was true when cost accounting was developed at the start of the 20th century.

Because TA follows the same basic format as direct or variable costing accounting for periodic reporting, however, this discussion is important.

Advantages of Direct Costing

Advocates for direct costing base their interest on internal flows (Dopuch and Birnberg, 1969, Chapter 15)7 and providing information for internal decisions. They claim that direct costing: Focuses attention on those costs that most closely approximate the marginal (incremental) costs of production; Relates profit to sales, rather than to sales and production, as does traditional accounting; Treats fixed costs as a period expense since these amounts must be expended in order to be in position to produce and must be incurred each period without regard to production quantity (that is, certain costs must be incurred even when production is at or near zero).

The advantages and disadvantages of direct costing are discussed in every cost or management accounting textbook when the methodology is introduced. While supporters and distracters at one time were passionate in their support or opposition, most authors now just list the advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages of Direct Costing

Opponents of direct costing do not accept the benefits claimed for direct costing and point out its theoretical weaknesses. They claim, as support for their stance, that direct costing: Violates the matching concept of accounting where the total unit cost of production (variable and fixed) must be recognized in the period when units are sold and not match the period in which they were incurred; Does not account for the total costs of producing a product on a recurring basis and that full (totally absorbed) costing, as in traditional accounting, is a better measure of the incremental cost of production; Is only applicable over a specified output range and variable costs may change outside the originally assumed range. (Of course, fixed costs are subject to the same claim.) While it is difficult to know what proportion of companies regularly record variable and fixed costs in separate journal accounts (companies are not required to disclose this information), the author's experience is that most companies do not. Since the separation of costs into fixed and variable components is required for virtually all internal decisions, this information must be accumulated in special studies. Unfortunately, most accounting/finance departments have little time to devote to special projects when relevant information is not readily available.

Activity-Based Cost Accounting

Activity-based cost (ABC) accounting might be considered accounting's attempt to "return to the basics" with several new twists. First, overhead is assigned to many pools, not to departments. Second, since all overhead costs can be changed over time, they are assumed to be variable. Third, the selection of allocation bases (drivers) used to allocate pool costs depends on whether costs are incurred at the unit, batch, product line, or facility level. (Facility-level costs include general manufacturing costs common to all production.) In practice, companies implementing ABC accounting allocate manufacturing costs as originally proposed by Church (1908, 1917), but rather than assigning overhead costs to departments, they are allocated to activity pools. Activity pools are holding accounts where costs for a particular activity, such as material movement, can be accumulated prior to being charged to users of the activity. Thus, if one product or product line requires more movement than other products, it would receive more of the material movement costs (Cooper et al., 1992).

Advantages of ABC Accounting/Management

Besides appearing more precise than traditional accounting, ABC accounting offered several advantages. ABC accounting: Gave companies (and accounting departments) hope that they could do something to reverse their poor business performance; Validated claims by operations people that small runs of "special" products cost more to produce than did long runs of common or commodity-type products; Silenced, for the most part, "fairness" arguments concerning overhead allocations; Provided much detailed information that could be analyzed for improvement initiatives, leading to the development of activity-based management (ABM; Cokins, 2001).

In addition to these advantages, companies that have taken the first step of charting all flows from purchase of raw materials through production processes to finish goods and shipping prior to implementing ABC have universally reported benefits achieved from their increased knowledge of their systems. Making use of all the data collected and updating it to track frequent changes in the business environment, however, has proven quite difficult and costly.

Disadvantages of ABC Accounting

As originally developed, ABC accounting and ABM required tremendous amounts of quantitative data on anticipated and actual driver (allocation base) consumption.8 Complex original implementation efforts and continuing data collection issues resulted in complaints that ABC accounting: Requires too much detailed data collection efforts by operating employees who did not want or use the information provided; Permits subjective selection of pools and drivers; Lacks an easy way to identify erroneously reported data; Mixes fixed and variable costs in the same pool (by assuming all costs are variable); Focuses on reducing costs, not generating revenue; Generates costs that greatly exceed benefits attained (Palmer and Vied, 1998; Geri and Ronen, 2005; Bragg, 2007a, 207209; Ricketts, 2008, 54.).

Even though the adoption of ABC accounting or ABM has been low and scattered (Kiani and Sangeladji, 2003; Cohen et al., 2005; Bhimani et al., 2007), academics and consultants continue to support the methodology (Stratton et al., 2009).

Balanced Scorecard

Recognizing the importance of appropriate performance measures to motivate employees to coordinate their activities (and later to implement company strategy), a performance scorecard that included nonfinancial metrics was developed by industry leaders.9 "The scorecard measures organizational performance across four balanced perspectives: financial, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth." (Kaplan and Norton, 1992; Kaplan and Norton, 1996, 2.) While the most well-known advocate of the balanced scorecard has not abandoned activity-based costing (Kaplan and Norton, 1996, 5557), a more balanced set of measures is intended to include the guidance of nonfinancial metrics and provide a more global perspective.

Surveys indicate that balanced scorecard concepts are used in most large companies in the United States and throughout the world. Despite reported successful implementations, however, there is little empirical evidence that implementing a balanced scorecard results in increased earnings (Speckbacher et al., 2003).

Advantages of a Balanced Scorecard Performance Reporting System

One of the major benefits of a balanced scorecard system, its ease of understanding, also may be one of its biggest flaws. It is entirely possible that managers, easily accepting the basic idea of balancing metrics across all aspects of a business and therefore prone to implementing balanced scorecards without outside consultants, have not sufficiently customized their balanced scorecard systems. Nevertheless, companies expect that a balanced scorecard performance reporting system will: Focus all employees on longer-term goals; Clarify the relationships and importance of various strategic goals; Align employee behavior with strategic goals; Provide relevant and timely feedback to managers; Promote better decisions; Improve operating performance (Lawson et al., 2003; Buhovac and Slapnicar, 2007; Anonymous, 2008, 80).

Unfortunately, most of these expectations are unfulfilled for the majority of adopters.

Disadvantages of Balanced Scorecards

It is estimated that up to 70 percent of organizations have adopted balanced scorecards (Angel and Rampersad, 2005). However, even proponents of balanced scorecards admit that up to 90 percent of adopters fail to execute well-planned strategies (Weil, 2007). For whatever reasons,10 balanced scorecard promises have not been delivered. One author came up with a list of "Top 10" problems with most scorecards (Brown, 2007, 9). Most researchers conclude that a balanced scorecard: Encourages too many measures that divert focus from what is important; Gives obvious priority to financial measures; bonuses are rarely based on non-financial metrics; Excludes, too often, appropriate measures for learning and organizational growth; Provides an unfavorable cost/benefit ratio; Produces measures from diversified divisions that cannot be aggregated at the corporate level; Neglects to clearly connect strategy with action at the individual employee level; Provides lagging metrics that do not produce timely information (Bourne et al., 2002; Speckbacher et al., 2003; Brown, 2007, 9; Weil, 2007).

Lean Accounting

Borrowing liberally from English translations of Toyota's development of Lean operations, all the way from The Machine That Changed the World (Womack, Jones, and Roos, 1990) to The Toyota Way (Liker, 2004) and The Toyota Way Field Book (Liker and Meier, 2006), Lean accounting intends to adapt to accounting the basic principles of eliminating waste, reducing time and cost, and developing value streams.

Lean concepts were developed in the manufacturing industry, but even service industries now are adopting Lean techniques. For example, in an attempt to reinvigorate its operations, Starbucks recently introduced Lean techniques in its coffee shops (Jargon, 2009). An executive search firm (recruiting Lean executives) has begun using Lean concepts (Brandt, 2009), back offices are implementing Lean (Brewton, 2009), and even hospitals are trying it out (Does et al., 2009).