Financial accounting provides information to enable stockholders, creditors, and other stakeholders to make informed decisions. This information can be used to evaluate and make decisions for an individual company or to compare two or more companies. On the other hand, and also known as management accounting or cost accounting, managerial accounting provides information to managers and other users within the company in order to make more informed decisions. These types of information are critical for all types of businesses to make sound decisions in order to efficiently and effectively run business operations on a daily basis.
John’s Delights company makes many different organic dairy products. John’s managers need to track their costs for certain jobs. One of the company’s top-selling ice creams is their seasonal variety; a new flavor is introduced every three months and sold for only a six-month period. The cost of these specialty ice creams is different from the cost of the standard flavors for reasons such as the unique or expensive ingredients and the specialty packaging. John wants to compare the costs involved in making the specialty ice cream and those involved in making the standard flavors of ice cream. This analysis will require that John track not only the cost of materials that go into the product, but also the labor hours and cost of the labor, plus other costs, known as overhead costs (rent, electricity, insurance, etc.), that are incurred in producing the various ice creams. Once the total costs for both the specialty ice cream and the standard flavored ice cream are known, the cost per unit can be determined for each type.
Suppose you have been hired by John’s Delights as a market analyst. Your first assignment is to evaluate the sales of various standard and specialty ice creams within the Northeast region where John’s Delights operates. You also need to determine the best-selling flavors of ice cream in other regions of the country as well as the selling patterns of the flavors. Keep in mind that one of the strategic goals of the company is to increase market share, and the first step in meeting this goal is to sell their product in 10 percent more stores within their current market, so your research will help upper-level management carry out the company’s goals.

Required

1.     There are many important differences between management accounting and financial accounting in their reporting functions. Briefly discuss at least 5 of these differences
2.     As the market analyst of John’s Delights, where would you find and gather the information necessary to analyze the company’s situation?
3.     What types of information would you as an analyst need?
4.     How would John’s Delights determine the impact of this type of change on the business?
5.     If implemented, what information would John’s Delights need to assess the success of the plan?
6.     How do the subject matter of reports and the verification of reports differ between financial accounting and managerial accounting?