Management Advisory Services (MAS)

Study lessons

1. 1

   Cost Behavior and CVP Analysis: Break-Even, Margin of Safety, and Target Profit

   Learn to classify costs by behavior, split a mixed cost with the high-low method, and use contribution margin to solve break-even, margin of safety, and target profit problems, the most heavily computed slice of the MAS section of the CPALE.

   15 min
2. 2

   Standard Costing, Budgeting, Relevant Costing, and Capital Budgeting

   Compute materials and labor variances, trace the master budget from the sales forecast down to the cash budget, apply relevant costing to make-or-buy and special-order decisions, and evaluate a long-term investment with payback, ARR, NPV, and IRR.

   15 min
3. 3

   Standard Costing and Variance Analysis: Materials, Labor, Overhead, and Sales Variances

   Compute and interpret every standard cost variance the CPALE tests: direct materials, direct labor, variable and fixed overhead under two-way, three-way, and four-way analysis, plus the sales price, volume, mix, and quantity variances.

   15 min
4. 4

   Financial Management: Working Capital, Ratios, Cost of Capital, and Leverage

   Master the corporate finance core of MAS: cash conversion cycle and EOQ, financial statement ratios and DuPont, after-tax cost of debt, CAPM and dividend growth cost of equity, WACC, operating and financial leverage, time value of money, dividend policy, and sources of financing.

   15 min
5. 5

   Costing Methods: Job Order, Process, and Activity-Based Costing

   Learn to accumulate product cost three ways: job order costing with a predetermined overhead rate, process costing with equivalent units, and activity-based costing that assigns overhead by cost driver.

   15 min
6. 6

   Strategic Cost Management: TQM, JIT, Theory of Constraints, and the Balanced Scorecard

   Master the modern cost-management frameworks the CPALE tests: total quality management and the four quality-cost categories, just-in-time, throughput and the theory of constraints, and the four balanced scorecard perspectives.

   14 min
7. 7

   Cost Concepts, Classification, and Manufacturing Cost Flows

   Classify a cost by traceability, function, and behavior, separate product costs from period costs, compute prime and conversion cost, and trace a peso from raw materials through work in process and finished goods into cost of goods sold with a fully worked statement of cost of goods manufactured.

   15 min
8. 8

   Variable Costing versus Absorption Costing

   Learn why the same company reports two different operating incomes depending on how fixed manufacturing overhead is treated, reconcile the two figures using the change in inventory, and know which method PAS 2 requires for external reporting and which one management uses to decide.

   15 min
9. 9

   Relevant Costing and Short-Term Decision Making

   Identify which costs actually belong in a decision, then apply incremental analysis to the five decisions the CPALE tests: make or buy, accept or reject a special order, sell or process further, keep or drop a segment, and how to allocate a constrained resource.

   16 min
10. 10

    Performance Management: ROI, Residual Income, EVA, and Transfer Pricing

    Evaluate a responsibility center the way the board tests it: compute return on investment through the DuPont components, contrast it with residual income and economic value added, understand why ROI causes managers to reject good projects, measure a segment on its segment margin, and set the transfer price range between two divisions.

    16 min
11. 11

    Quantitative Methods and Risk Analysis

    Work the quantitative tools the CPALE draws on: expected value and the expected value of perfect information, decision trees, the coefficient of variation as a risk measure, least-squares regression and the coefficient of determination, the learning curve, and the structure of a linear programming problem.

    16 min
12. 12

    Capital Budgeting in Depth: Project Cash Flows, Taxes, and the Depreciation Tax Shield

    Build the three stages of a project's cash flows, convert accounting income into after-tax operating cash flow two equivalent ways, compute the depreciation tax shield, handle the after-tax proceeds of an asset disposal and the recovery of working capital, and rank projects under capital rationing with the profitability index.

    17 min

Section practice test

5 test sets covering the whole Management Advisory Services (MAS) section, 150 original questions with explanations. After you finish the lessons above, prove it here. Randomized every run.