制造业中的每个人都同意，了解与运营相关的成本可以改善决策。但是，在将近一个世纪的时间里，成本量一直由旨在向外部利益相关者（例如投资者和债权人）提供信息的会计标准主导。试图将这些外部专注的会计标准与内部操作联系起来的方法是如此复杂，并且产生了很少的有用信息，甚至会计师讨厌与他们打交道，而其他人则只是摇摇头。
浮雕在视线中。管理会计师协会（IMA）发布了一个概念框架，用于管理成本，该框架纯粹是专注于内部决策支持的成本。该框架的目标是“对利用业务资源以及相关的因果关系和影响的见解，对过去，现在或将来的企业经济活动进行货币反映。”该框架忽略了外部报告的普遍接受的会计标准，并解决了以下问题：如何进行成本来优化操作和长期价值创造？
The core principles of the new framework are causality (cause and effect) and analogy (use of information and logical inference). The causality principle guides the construction of a model that must reflect resource and process causal relationships. In fact, the framework promotes modeling resources and processes before applying monetary values. The analogy principle emphasizes that the impact of decisions must be compared logically using cause-and-effect inferences to the current state to comprehensively assess impact.
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The new costing framework expands on the two core principles of causality and analogy by identifying and explaining a number of key concepts that define and support each principle. Here again manufacturers will be encouraged to see the focus is physical resources, not just money. The framework recommends that all resources be tied clearly to managerial objectives. For example, the objective of a machine maintenance team is to produce maintenance hours that are consumed by particular machines: their costs should not be aggregated or pooled and allocated to a product cost in a pool with other support/overhead activities. The framework defines a concept known as attributability, which acknowledges that causal relationships vary from very strong to weak to nonexistent.
The concept of attributability clearly states that distortion will be created if weak causal relationships are allocated. It advocates the best practice is to attribute such costs to the level of the organization that the costs are causally related to or that has management authority to eliminate the costs. The concept of capacity defines the importance of knowing capacities, correctly identifying capacity use, and accurately modeling them—for example, avoiding the distortions that can occur if excess or idle capacity is allocated into product cost and not identified clearly for active management attention. Hopefully, these examples give you a sense that the framework’s focus is much different from traditional cost accounting.
对于制造经理的管理成本框架的概念框架的真正好处是，您现在有一个可靠的参考来讨论连接运营和财务信息的改进。狭义的会计师的观点是，唯一可以考虑的数字是财务报表中的数字。尽管这个数字对于许多目的来说很重要，但外部GAAP报告模型基于一个概念框架，该框架将投资者和债权人的需求放在首位，并且不认为管理人员的需求使决策至关重要。该框架也将用于评估组织的成本要求和指导实施选项。
>> Larry White, CMA, CPA, CGFM,lwhite@rcainstitute.org，是资源消费会计学院的执行董事（www.rcainstitute.org）。which trains and advocates for improved cost information connected to operational business performance.
