In the third course, you will learn how to use information from cost accounting to improve managerial decision-making. We discuss business decisions and suggest how cost information can support them best. For example, how will costs change if managers adjust cost drivers? How many units do companies need to sell in order to avoid losses or to achieve a targeted profit? How can managers improve pricing or product programs with information from cost accounting?
Offered By
About this Course
Knowledge of the basics of cost accounting, e.g. product and service costing and profit and loss calculation.
What you will learn
You will learn methods that help to figure out how costs will behave if you adjust produced or sold quantities.
You will learn how cost information can support business decisions best.
You will learn to distinguish costs that are relevant for business decisions from costs that are irrelevant.
Skills you will gain
- Cost-volume profit analysis
- Cost Functions
- Cost behavior
- Operative Decisions
Knowledge of the basics of cost accounting, e.g. product and service costing and profit and loss calculation.
Offered by

Technische Universität München (TUM)
Technische Universität München (TUM) is one of Europe’s top universities. It is committed to excellence in research and teaching, interdisciplinary education and the active promotion of promising young scientists. The university forges strong links with companies and scientific institutions across the world. TUM was one of the first universities in Germany to be named a University of Excellence. TUM does not pass any personal data to the platform providers. If you take part in one of our MOOCs, please refer to the data protection guidelines in the terms and conditions of the provider.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Cost functions and determining how costs behave
Cost accountants want to support decision making. To do so, they should not only calculate current costs and income, but they should also be able to tell managers how costs might change depending on managers' decisions. "How would costs change if we produced more or less products? How would they change if we produce more or less variants of products? How would they change if we increase the quality of our products?" Cost functions help to answer these questions and in this module, we make you familiar with them. First, we show you some typical cost functions and, second, we introduce a variety of methods that cost accountants can use to determine cost functions. Finally, we show you how accountants can document cost forecasts.
Cost-volume profit analysis
When companies consider offering a new product, they might want to know how many units they need to sell in order to avoid losses or to achieve a targeted profit. Cost-volume profit analysis is a simple tool that helps answer these questions. It illustrates how costs, revenues, and profits depend on sold quantities.
Cost and revenue information for operative decisions
In the beginning of this course, you learned that companies use Cost Accounting to support managers' decision-making. In this module, we outline some business decisions and discuss how cost information can support them best. For example, we discuss pricing decisions and product-mix decisions under capacity constraints.
About the Cost Accounting Specialization
View the Specialization trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE5Rx91bdYw

Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
Is financial aid available?
More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.