TLDR! Activity-Based Costing (ABC) concepts have been around for yonks! (Australian/British slang for a long time) Ever since the 1770’s. ABC concepts have been largely ignored for yonks! ABC was formalized in the 1980’s. ABC is needed more than even now given the increasing complexity of modern business models and the growth of overhead to […]
READ MOREWith Covid-19 striking the university sector hard (and suddenly) last year, the Commonwealth Government postponed the need for the university sector to provide their 2019 ‘Transparency in Higher Education Expenditure’ submission. However, despite the ongoing impact to the sector in 2021, the decision was made to not only ask for the 2019 data, but also […]
READ MOREFinancial analysts use a wide range of cost allocation methods, including cost per student credit hour, in universities to calculate the cost of delivering courses and programs. I will show you why this is fraught with danger and could cause more harm than good! In recent posts I have used data from our Australian demonstration […]
READ MOREQuick Thoughts Costing is Management Accounting. Costing requires Operations and/or Engineering expertise. Cost is modelled. e.g. Activity-Based Costing. Cost comes in many forms – Financial Cost, Environmental Cost, Social Cost. It’s important to understand what CAUSES cost so you can manage it appropriately. Cost is calculated by identifying where resources are used to undertake work […]
READ MOREIn times of financial crisis, low enrolment courses are usually targets for removal. But removing the wrong courses could lead to a worse financial position! Due to the financial impacts of the current pandemic, institutions are taking a serious look at all of their programs and courses to determine their financial performance. The typical targets […]
READ MORELast week we were invited to present our regular solution to a university technical team. Lots of analytical and IT skills in the group and one of the attendees asked a very important question “What can you do that we can’t?”. What a great question and one that we should be answering all the time […]
READ MOREDue to the pandemic, a lot of institutions are seriously reviewing their Academic Programs. In this video we’ll take you through a quick example of how our models can be used to support the Program Review process.
READ MOREEverything you do has some type of cost associated with it. If you want to drive to the shops, you need a vehicle which you either purchased with cash, or you are paying off a loan, or you leased the vehicle. Then the vehicle requires fuel, oil, water and associated maintenance. All the things you […]
READ MOREThis is a rewrite of an old blog post with a specific focus on Higher Ed. At the end of the article is a link to a whitepaper discussing the prototype Carbon Accounting model implemented at Weber State University. Managing Environmental Issues and Mission The Problem – Every institution’s operations have an environmental impact. There […]
READ MOREI just read this article by Kevin R. McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington on Academic Burnout. To quote the article “The pandemic has introduced unique challenges for faculty and staff in higher education that may make burnout even likelier to occur…Summer is normally a time of […]
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