企业成本控制分析外文翻译

原文题目：《成本控制》

作者：罗杰·奥比纳得

原文出处：Reference for Business, Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed.

成本控制

成本控制，也被称为遏制成本或管理成本，一个广阔的成本管理技术，它的经济增长目标是降低成本提高企业效率。企业使用的成本控制方法，监测，评价，并最终提升效率的具体领域，如部门、产品线。

20世纪90年代的成本控制措施，受到了美国企业的首要关注。一般而言，外包企业重组、撤资的外围活动，大规模裁员等成本控制战略被认为是升提升企业利润和维持企业竞争优势的需要。其目的往往是降低企业的生产成本，这样该企业给出的销售价格就比其竞争对手具更大的利润。

一些成本控制的支持者认为，这种战略的成本削减计划必须慎重，因为并非所有降低成本的方法，都会对企业产生有利的影响。在20世纪90年代的一个显著的例子,首席执行官邓拉普,绰号“电锯阿尔”，尽管他大幅降低企业的生产成本，但他领导的小器具制造公司依旧未能盈利。邓拉普解雇了成千上万的工人和出售企业的业务,在他担任CEO两年内贡献不大，公司的竞争地位和股票的价格大幅下滑。因此，在1998年公司董事会解雇了邓拉普，对他“成本控制一招”的管理方法失去了信心。

成本控制是一个持续的过程，与拟议的年度预算配合使用。该预算有助于：（1）组织、协调生产和销售、服务和管理职能;（2）采取最大程度地利用现有的机会。根据财政历年的进步形式，将预算与实际结果作比，生成新的计划和经验教训，用以评价目前的行动。

控制是指通过管理层的努力来影响个人的行为，由谁负责执行任务,承担成本,并获得收入。管理是一个过程，将其分为两个阶段：规划是指管理计划的方式，希望人们人们能够执行的程序，而控制是指受雇于这些计划的程序是否符合实际表现。通过预算过程管理和会计控制、建立全面的公司目标,明确责任中心，确定各责任中心的具体目标,设计的程序和标准报到和评价。

一个分部的业务纳入预算的组成部分，由责任方控制的。责任中心适用于组织单位和职能部门。通常一个人单独负责的责任中心更具实质性，如果控制活动不彻底，中心控制的人在活动过程中，难以得到预期的活动结果。成本中心只负责管理费用，也就是说，他们不产生收益。例如会计部门，人力资源管理部门，内部服务和类似提供内部服务的部门。利润中

心承担利润和费用的收入责任。例如，生产线或一个独立的业务部门可能会被认为是利润中心。如果利润中心有自己的资产，它也可被视为一个投资中心，由此才能确定投资回报。责任中心使用的控制报告使管理者更具责任性，并且有助对利润的计划。

预算案还规定了参考标准，表明了这次活动的级别、各单位负责人、能使用的资源及预期出现的结果。建立一个预算责任中心，规定其责任中心代表所承担的责任，并确定组织内的决策点。

规划过程提供了两种控制机制：

前馈：提供一个在行动点（决策点）控制的基础;

反馈：提供一种测量实施后的控制基础。

管理层的作用是引导公司未来的走向，明确决策，协调和指导员工活动。管理部门还通过发展监督程序,收集、记录、评估反馈。因此,有效的管理控制结果,是通过制定计划，提供资源，进行适当的培训,引导员工的集体组织意识，从而提高评价和反馈的质量及结果。

控制报告是告诉管理者一个实体的活动的管理信息报告。管理层提出控制报告仅供内部使用,因此，指示财务部门发展量身订作的报告格式。会计向管理层提供一种格式来检测管理的变化。此外，管理层还提到了企业的对外报告和特定行业的常规报告如损益表和资金报表。

控制报告能提供管理层足够的信息量，使管理人员可从最初的预算中分析的成本差异的原因。一个好的控制报告能突出不同管理层所需的重要信息。

由于企业成功的关键因素（如种类和数量）是在变化的，所以会计控制报告必须及时修改。会计期间各不相同的控制报告必须涵盖整个期间，由此管理层才可以采取有效的补救措施。此外，会计控制报告的及时传播，给管理层足够的时间采取行动。

当进行有效的管理，企业达到的目标将和预算确定的目标一致。管理者成功的程度取决于利润，管理人员在行动的时应意识到自己更有效地对费用进行控制取得的收入也会更多。

虽然他们不能预测销售的时间和实际销售数量，他们可以决定他们的大部分资源的利用率，也就是说，他们可以影响成本方面。因此，管理性能的优良可从其运作的成本控制方面进行评价。

出于成本控制的目的，预算规定了企业的标准开支。正如管理结构的预算，它勾画出一个路线图，指导企业的工作。它阐述了一定销售数量的假设条件下，企业的经济关系和互动能力,市场动态,它的销售队伍,及其承载力,以提供正确的数量和质量要求。

会计在企业的规划和控制中扮演了一个关键角色。它渗透在以下四个关键领域：（1）数据收集，（2）数据分析，（3）预算控制和管理，以及（4）整理和审查。

会计师事务所在设计和获取支持程序方面的规划过程中发挥关键作用。此外,他们还收集和传播企业用于销售和预订有关的详细资料。

经营管理人员有责任对企业各元素进行规划、编译和协调，并根据会计科目的可行性及预算利润率的分析来确定符合公认的标准和规范。

管理者依赖会计数据和分析选择不同形式的成本控制方案,管理者可以指导会计部门专门准备这些期权报告的评估。电锯阿尔事件说明，削减大部分费用成本的措施不可作为实施可行目标的途径。例如，在大规模裁员中，该公司可能会失去它的很大一部分人力资本裁掉的老员工可能是他们领域的专家。因此，管理层必须确定哪些成本具有战略意义。

确定削减成本的战略冲击，管理者必须斟酌提出的变动对所有事务区域的实际影响。例如，降低与制造产品直接相关的可变成本，如材料和运输成本，可能是获得更大利润的关键。但管理层还必须考虑节约生产资金是否危害其他战略利益像质量或产品进入市场的时间。如果便宜的材料或其他运输系统会产生负面影响，这种情况下，管理者需要谨记不能因眼前好处而丢失长远利益。

成本控制中的一个趋势是缩小企业责任中心，从而将一些日常的成本控制功能进行整合。这种做法的目的是实施自下而上的成本控制措施，并鼓励达成成本管理战略的广泛共识。

COST CONTROL

Roger J. AbiNader

Reference for Business，Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed.

Cost control, also known as cost management or cost containment, is a broad set of cost accountingmethods and management techniques with the common goal of improving business cost-efficiency by reducing costs, or at least restricting their rate of growth. Businesses use cost control methods to monitor, evaluate, and ultimately enhance the efficiency of specific areas, such as departments, divisions, or product lines, within their operations.

During the 1990s cost control initiatives received paramount attention from corporate America. Often taking the form of corporate restructuring, divestmentof peripheral activities, mass layoffs,or outsourcing,cost control strategies were seen as necessary to preserve—or boost—corporate profits and to maintain—or gain—a competitive advantage. The objective was often to be the low-cost producer in a given industry, which would typically allow the company to take a greater profit per unit of sales than its competitors at a given price level.

Some cost control proponents believe that such strategic cost-cutting must be planned carefully, as not all cost reduction techniques yield the same benefits. In a notable late 1990s example, chief executive Albert J. Dunlap, nicknamed "Chainsaw Al" because of his penchant for deep cost cutting at the companies he headed, failed to restore the ailing small appliance maker Sunbeam Corporation to profitability despite his drastic cost reduction tactics. Dunlap laid off thousands of workers and sold off business units, but made little contribution to Sunbeam's competitive position or share price in his two years as CEO. Consequently, in 1998 Sunbeam's board fired Dunlap, having lost confidence in his "one-trick" approach to management.

Behavioral management deals with the attitudes and actions of employees. While employee behavior ultimately impacts on success, behavioral management involves certain issues and assumptions not applicable to accounting's control function. On the other hand, performance evaluation measures outcomes of employee's actions by comparing the actual results of business outcomes to predetermined standards of success. In this way management identifies the strengths it needs to maximize, and the weaknesses it seeks to rectify. This process of evaluation and remedy is called cost control.

Cost control is a continuous process that begins with the proposed annual budget. The budget

helps: (1) to organize and coordinate production, and the selling, distribution, service, and administrative functions; and (2) to take maximum advantage of available opportunities. As the fiscal year progresses, management compares actual results with those projected in the budget and incorporates into the new plan the lessons learned from its evaluation of current operations.

Control refers to management's effort to influence the actions of individuals who are responsible for performing tasks, incurring costs, and generating revenues. Management is a two-phased process: planningrefers to the way that management plans and wants people to perform, while controlrefers to the procedures employed to determine whether actual performance complies with these plans. Through the budget process and accounting control, management establishes overall company objectives, defines the centers of responsibility, determines specific objectives for each responsibility center, and designs procedures and standards for reporting and evaluation.

A budget segments the business into its components or centers where the responsible party initiates and controls action. Responsibility centersrepresent applicable organizational units, functions, departments, and divisions. Generally a single individual heads the responsibility center exercising substantial, if not complete, control over the activities of people or processes within the center and controlling the results of their activity. Cost centersare accountable only for expenses, that is, they do not generate revenue. Examples include accounting departments, human resources departments, and similar areas of the business that provide internal services. Profit centersaccept responsibility for both revenue and expenses. For example, a product line or an autonomous business unit might be considered profit centers. If the profit center has its own assets, it may also be considered an investment center,for which returns on investment can be determined. The use of responsibility centers allows management to design control reports to pinpoint accountability, thus aiding in profit planning.

A budget also sets standards to indicate the level of activity expected from each responsible person or decision unit, and the amount of resources that a responsible party should use in achieving that level of activity. A budget establishes the responsibility center, delegates the concomitant responsibilities, and determines the decision points within an organization.

The planning process provides for two types of control mechanisms:

Feedforward: providing a basis for control at the point of action (the decision point); and

Feedback: providing a basis for measuring the effectiveness of control after implementation.

Management's role is to feedforwarda futuristic vision of where the company is going and how it is to get there, and to make clear decisions coordinating and directing employee activities. Management also oversees the development of procedures to collect, record, and evaluate feedback.Therefore, effective management controls results from leading people by force of

personality and through persuasion; providing and maintaining proper training, planning, and resources; and improving quality and results through evaluation and feedback.

Control reports are informational reports that tell management about an entity's activities. Management requests control reports only for internal use, and, therefore, directs the accounting department to develop tailor-made reporting formats. Accounting provides management with a format designed to detect variations that need investigating. In addition, management also refers to conventional reports such as the income statement and funds statement, and external reports on the general economy and the specific industry.

Control reports, then, need to provide an adequate amount of information so that management may determine the reasons for any cost variances from the original budget. A good control report highlights significant information by focusing management's attention on those items in which actual performance significantly differs from the standard.

Because key success factors shift in type and number, accounting revises control reports when necessary. Accounting also varies the control period covered by the control report to encompass a period in which management can take useful remedial action. In addition, accounting disseminates control reports in a timely fashion to give management adequate time to act before the issuance of the next report.

Managers perform effectively when they attain the goals and objectives set by the budget. With respect to profits, managers succeed by the degree to which revenues continually exceed expenses. In applying the following simple formula, managers, especially those in operations, realize that they exercise more control over expenses than they do over revenue.

While they cannot predict the timing and volume of actual sales, they can determine the utilization rate of most of their resources, that is, they can influence the cost side. Hence, the evaluation of management's performance and its operations is cost control.

For cost control purposes, a budget provides standard costs. As management constructs budgets, it lays out a road map to guide its efforts. It states a number of assumptions about the relationships and interaction among the economy, market dynamics, the abilities of its sales force, and its capacity to provide the proper quantity and quality of products demanded.

Accounting plays a key role in all planning and control. It does this in four key areas: (1) data collection, (2) data analysis, (3) budget control and administration, and (4) consolidation and review.

The accountants play a key role in designing and securing support for the procedural aspects of the planning process. In addition, they design and distribute forms for the collection and booking of detailed data on all aspects of the business.

Although operating managers have the main responsibility of planning, accounting compiles

and coordinates the elements. Accountants subject proposed budgets to feasibility and profitability analyses to determine conformity to accepted standards and practices.

Management relies on such accounting data and analysis to choose from several cost control alternatives, or management may direct accounting to prepare reports specifically for evaluating such options. As the Chainsaw Al episode indicated, all costs may not be viable targets for cost-cutting measures. For instance, in mass layoffs, the company may lose a significant share of its human capitalby releasing veteran employees who are experts in their fields, not to mention by creating a decline in morale among those who remain. Thus management must identify which costs have strategic significance and which do not.

To determine the strategic impact of cost-cutting, management has to weigh the net effects of the proposed change on all areas of the business. For example, reducing variable costs related directly to manufacturing a product, such as materials and transportation costs, could be the key to greater incremental profits. However, management must also consider whether saving money on production is jeopardizing other strategic interests like quality or time to market. If a cheaper material or transportation system negatively impacts other strategic variables, the nominal cost savings may not benefit the company in the bigger picture, e.g., it may lose sales. In such scenarios, managers require the discipline not to place short-term savings over long-term interests.

One trend in cost control has been toward narrowing the focus of corporate responsibility centers, and thereby shifting some of the cost control function to day-to-day managers who have the most knowledge of and influence over how their areas spend money. This practice is intended to promote bottom-up cost control measures and encourage a widespread consensus over cost management strategies.

Control of the business entity, then, is essentially a managerial and supervisory function. Control consists of those actions necessary to assure that the entity's resources and operations are focused on attaining established objectives, goals and plans. Control, exercised continuously, flags potential problems so that crises may be prevented. It also standardizes the quality and quantity of output, and provides managers with objective information about employee performance. Management compares actual performance to predetermined standards and takes action when necessary to correct variances from the standards.