Management Accounting I: Towards Profitable Decision Making

Course information

Learning outcomes

After this course students will:

• Understand and apply basic concepts of costs and profitability
• Understand and apply basic and advanced cost tracing and assignment methods (job costing, process costing, traditional costing, ABC) to accurately determine profitability
• Understand and apply tools for profitable operational and strategic decision making (cost volume profit analysis, pricing and product mix decisions, customer analysis)

Content

Managing costs (understood as capacity and material inputs to the implementation of organizational strategy) is essential for achieving product and service profitability and ultimately organizational profitability. Understanding what gives rise to costs is hence essential for the survival of any kind of organization. This course focuses on developing an actionable understanding of profitability from the costing perspective.

Students will gain an intermediate-level understanding of profitability and profitability management from the costing perspective. They will also explore various cost assignment and tracing techniques, and discuss their applications, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. After arriving at a basic understanding on costing we explore uses of cost information for profitable decision-making performance management.

Teacher

David Derichs

Study material

Required: Rajan Datar Horngren (2021). Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis 17th Edition, Global Edition

Alternative (please check chapter mapping provided in MyCourses – students take responsibility for assuring content fit of all chapters): Rajan Datar Horngren (2015). Cost Accounting, Global Edition.

Workload

This course is an asynchronous online course.

• Pre-recorded lectures: 18 h
• Case work (group (intended) or individual (if necessary)): 18 h
• Individual home assignments (about 60% more individual work): 30 h
• Independent study: 86 h
• Exam 2 h - booked through the EXAM system and taken in EXAM facilities

Prerequisites

Recommended prerequisites: 22A00110 Laskentatoimen perusteet / ABL-A1300 Yrityksen talouden johtaminen ja raportointi or similar course

Evaluation

Exam
Cases (group work)
Exercises
Oppotunity to earn bonus points - detailed info provided on the course page

To pass the course the student has to get: (a) at least 50% of the exam and (b) + cases / exercises of at least 50% 

Teaching time and location

The teaching time and the location of the course can be found at Sisu information system

1. The link leads to Completion methods tab of the course page
2. From the top of the page (Version drop-down menu), check that academic year 2025-2026 is selected  

3. From the blue bar, click Lecture and open the Groups and teaching times tab to see the teaching time and the location of the course. Exam times can be seen by clicking Exam. At this course, the EXAM period is one month starting with the official exam week. Both first and retake exam are taken during this month.
    

   Exam instructions at the Open University

The teacher has four (4) weeks to grade the exam submissions starting from the exam date.

Further information

Replaces course 22C00200 Johdon laskentatoimi I (Management Accounting I)

Online learning environment for the course  

MyCourses online learning environment is a tool for both students and teachers for communication and managing everyday course work. You need an Aalto User ID to log in to the course's MyCourses workspace and participate in teaching.

Digital workspace of the course:
MyCourses

More details on completing the course will be available at MyCourses closer to the start of the course.

Registration and course fee

Registration for Open University courses is done via the link below: 
Course registration Registration for this course starts on 26.1.2026 at 9.00  
Registration for this course ends on 16.2.2026 at 23.59

It is not possible to register before the registration period has started or after it has ended.

The number of participants is limited to 20.

This course is organized by the Aalto University School of Business.

The course fee is paid upon registration for each course at a time and it is binding. Familiarize yourself with registration and payment rules as well as other guidelines for students:
Registration, payments and rules

Activating Aalto ID and Multifactor Authentication

You can activate your Aalto User ID the day after the registration and you should activate it no later than the day before the start of the course.
Instructions for activating your Aalto user ID

Once you have activated your Aalto user ID, also enable multifactor authentication. Some of Aalto University's services require multifactor authentication.

Instructions for using Multifactor Authentication