Pricing 1: Theoretical aspects
This article deals with the theoretical aspects of pricing and a second article deals with practical pricing.  

Pricing 2: Practical aspects
This article deals with practical pricing approaches.  

Balanced scorecard
For a profit-seeking company, sustained financial success and long-term shareholder value are the ultimate objectives and the
balanced scorecard suggests how this might be achieved.  

Big data 1: What is big data?
Big data is part of the Performance Management syllabus. But what exactly is big data?  

Big data 2: How companies use big data
This article will describe some real life examples of the use of big data for performance management and measurement purposes.  

Relevant costs
This article looks at relevant costs, which can be defined as any cost relevant to a decision.  

Information systems
Information systems (IS) is a topic you need to be ready for in all sections of the Performance Management exam. The examiner
reports state that students regularly overlook this area of the syllabus, so make sure you cover it during your studies.  

Tackling performance evaluation questions
Performance evaluation is a regularly examined requirement in the Performance Management exam, and is a topic that
students tend to misunderstand and struggle with. This article provides advice on successfully tackling this type of
question, working through an approach for planning and answering this requirement, looking at common mistakes and
tips on how to avoid them.  

Building blocks of performance management
Performance management – the processes that ensure organisations meet their objectives – is core to the Performance
Management syllabus, and understanding modern performance measurement systems is an important area within this topic.
This article reviews the importance of the modern approach to performance measurement, discusses the
Building Block model, and applies this model to an exam-based scenario.  

Decentralisation and the need for performance measurement
This article focuses on a classic performance measurement question, which involves a combination of financial and non-financial analysis.  

Transfer pricing
The purpose of this article is to strip transfer pricing back to the basics and consider, first, why transfer pricing is important;
secondly, the general principles that should be applied when setting a transfer price; and thirdly, an approach to tackle
exam questions in this area, specifically the question from June 2014’s exam.  

Activity-based costing
ABC undoubtedly requires an organisation to spend time and effort investigating more fully what causes it to incur costs,
and then to use that detailed information for costing purposes.    

Target costing and lifecycle costing
An explanation of target costing and lifecycle costing, with examples as to how and when you would use these costing techniques.  

Throughput accounting and the theory of constraints – part 1
In the first of two articles, we look at the basic principles of the theory of constraints and throughput accounting.  

Throughput accounting and the theory of constraints – part 2
A follow-up to the first part of this article featuring a discussion on the five focusing steps of the theory of constraints, with
examples of how these steps might be applied in practice or in the exam.  

Environmental management accounting
Environmental management accounting is part of the Performance Management syllabus and requires students to describe
the issues businesses face in managing environmental costs, and the different methods they may use to account for these.  

Cost-volume-profit analysis
Cost-volume-profit analysis allows a business to find its break-even point.  

Linear programming
A simple example to illustrate the decision-making technique of linear programming.  

The risks of uncertainty
Decisions, decisions – risk, probability and potential outcomes unravelled.  

Decision trees
The addition of decision trees to the Performance Management syllabus is a relatively recent one. This article provides
a step-by-step approach to decision trees, using a simple example to guide you through.  

All about budgeting  part 1
This series of articles covers the budgeting approaches flexible budgeting, activity-based budgeting, rolling budgeting,
zero-based budgeting, and beyond budgeting.  

All about budgeting part 2

All about budgeting part 3

All about budgeting part 4

All about budgeting part 5

Comparing budgeting techniques (incremental v ZBB) in the public sector
This article critically evaluates the two main methods for preparing budgets - the incremental approach and the zero-based approach.    

The learning rate and learning effect
The purpose of this article is to summarise the history of the learning curve effect and help candidates understand why it is
important, as well as looking at what past learning curve questions have required of candidates and to clarify how future
questions may go beyond this.  

Materials mix and yield variances
This article explains the theory behind mix and yield variances, and provides examples of how to use them in an exam.  

Not-for-profit organisations – part 1
The first part of the article broadly describes the generic characteristics of not-for-profit organisations.  

Not-for-profit organisations – part 2
The second part of the article takes a specific and deeper look at charities, which are one of the more important types of
not-for-profit organisations.