The street sweepers here in Sarajevo need to be trained! When it snows and is icy, someone spreads grit and sand all over the footpaths ... the street sweepers come along and sweep it all away! Let me be kind and assume they are recycling it. Still, they could reorganise it for a while to prevent clots like me slipping all over the place!! All being well I am leaving for the UK shortly: looking at the weather en route and in the UK has me concerned, however. I'll be back on line very shortly. DW

Vicki wrote back to say: Ah ha! I just re-read my assignment booklet and you are completely correct, it says that it is to be assumed 20% of the selling price. You are a genius!!! Thanks for your help Vicki My pleasure! DW

Just found out that Jake Thackray died on 28 December 2002. Jake was, for me anyway, a folk singer. I've just read his obituary from The Independent newspaper and I think they think he was something other than that. My opinion is based on his television appearances when I was growing up: his lasting impression on me, that is! "Oh, Sister Josephine ... what a bloody funny Nun you are" can never be the same again! DW

Friend Vicki wrote again, nice to hear from you Vicki, with this: Happy new year to you, I hope you had a good break. Sorry to bother you, I just wondered if you could explain how profit is calculated. I have sat my exam for the piece of coursework I spoke to you about before, however I ended up with a few odd numbers on my spreadsheet, the reason for this is that I needed to alter the profit to be calculated. The profit was to be assumed 20%, so I had this: costs * 1.2 however, my friend (on the same course) advised me that what I should do was: (costs/80)*100 The two give different answers but using his formula gave me what should be the correct figures. (The selling price was discussed in a tutorial where my tutor had said that they were the correct figures, at the same time as telling us about the problem with hours for the interpretation). I understand how my friends calculation works but I do not understand why this way is to be used because mathematically, it is not straight forward being increased by 20%. I hope I haven't confused you, and I would be grateful if you could advise me the correct way to calculate profit. Although the exam is now gone I want to know and understand how to do this properly. Thank you for your time, Vicki Not confused, I replied as follows: Hi Vicki, I had a good but all too short holiday thanks. Your problem is a typical problem both to solve and to get confused by. Here’s the explanation! If someone says that the selling price is Cost plus 20% of cost, then the following is true Cost = 100% of Cost Profit = 20% of Cost Selling Price = 120% of Cost In this case, the method for getting from Cost to Selling Price is Selling Price = Cost * 1.2 So far so good; and I can see that you understand that! Now, let’s assume that we are told that the Profit is to be 20% of Selling Price when the Cost is known to be £100. Aagh! What’s the Selling Price … what’s the Profit … ? Keep calm and use the same layout and apply the same logic: fill in what we know and then derive what we don’t know: This is what we know: Cost = £100 Profit = 20% of Selling Price Selling Price = £x This is the logic; Cost = £100 = 80% of Selling Price … can you see why? Profit = 20% of Selling Price Selling Price = £x = 100% of Selling Price Hence, the Cost MUST be £100/80% = £100/0.8 = £125 Hence, the Selling Price MUST be £125/80*100 = £156.25 Hence, the Profit MUST be 20% of the Selling price = 20% * £125 = £31.25 Does this all work out? Cost = £125.00 Profit = 31.25 Selling Price = £156.25 So, is Cost of £125 equal to 80% of £156.25 … YES! You might need to think about that a bit Vicki: it’s a cheap trick, of course, but such questions are very commonly asked at ALL levels of accounting education. Let me know of any more bother! Best wishes HTH DW

Physician heal thyself ... or what? This morning I was about to give a presentation to some important people and I received another bit of info that I NEEDED to insert ... it was on paper! I whipped out my digital, took a picture of the page and ran it through ABBYY FineReader ... it read it like a charm and it took me just two minutes to go from hard copy to brand new slide that just needed a bit of formatting. What a winner! DW

I am spending some time learning Photoshop 6: photo editing software and let me record here and now that it has possibly the worst Help files I've seen in a long time. DW

Here's a top tip that some of you might appreciate. Ever thought you'd like to have something in a Word file but all you've got is a hard copy? Don't have a scanner? If you have a digital camera, here's what you can do: Learn to take a decent digital photograph of the page or pages you are interested in, get some OCR software (there are full versions easily downloadable available: such as ABBYY FineReader) and the chances are it will be able to read the text into a Wrod file ... might also be able to put it into an Excel file if it's a table and the software's reasonably up to date. I do use a scanner and I have an up to date OCR software package but I thought I'd get ready for the day when I'm on the road and I want to input a file ... it works! There, another top tip from your truly! DW

Why did I choose the wood mouse as the basis of my disease? Look at Arthur Grosset's description of that mouse and you can work out why: "It is identified by its large ears, protruding eyes, long tail and dark brown fur with white underparts. They eat a wide variety of food including flower seeds as seen in these photos." Enough said! There's a very nice picture of me here, too! DW

Let's give it a name: my mouse abuse needs a name. Here are the contenders: Mus domesticusitis Micromystitis minutus Apodemustitis sylvaticus Apodemus flavicollisitis And the winner is Apodemustitis sylvaticus. From now on it has to be known that I am suffering from Apodemustitis sylvaticus until I'm cured. The well read among you will know that Mus domesticus is the house mouse Micromys minutus is the harvest mouse Apodemus sylvaticus is the wood mouse Apodemus flavicollis is the yellow necked mouse Thanks to the Staffordshire Biodiversity Action Plan people from whose site I robbed the latin names! DW

Here's an update you weren't expecting. I used to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of years of mouse abuse. I am always on the edge of that syndrome still but now I've been hit by repetitive strain injury to the ends of three of the fingers on my right hand. It's painful although I am finding workarounds. The problem is that although I learned to touch type a long time ago, I developed some bad habits and now I am paying the price. So, sit up straight, don't look at the keyboard when you type and use ALL the keys, exactly as you are supposed to! Here endeth the lesson. DW

Saturday Morning at the Hotel Breakfast: early Saturday morning. As I left the room I told myself that I’d probably be the first down and that I’d be alone … the bananas would be safe with me: I was wrong! Status Quo was there: he of the white collarless shirt, jeans, black shiny shoes and a waistcoat. Honest, that’s how he dressed: early 40s I would think. Huge silver watch and nice aftershave or cologne. Quo said to the waiter: “What can I have for breakfast?” and the waiter, spotting the retro look and rocking backwards and forwards playing an air guitar said, quick as a flash: “Whatever you want”!!! Made me laugh! Here’s a warning: I don’t know this man but my experience of life has taught me that if a MAN (women are exempt so far) is wearing a big watch, he has problems of some kind. Maybe business, maybe personal. It’s like the men who wear expensive suits, shirts and ties, they carry expensive brief cases and then they wear cheap shoes: again suggests a problem. More than that, he sniffed and sniffed all the way through his breakfast: how common! There’s been a woman at the hotel all week who’s been smartly dressed, comes down at around the same time as me. She has changed her outfit every day, including today of course; but she’s worn the same shoes every day. Maybe they are her hotel shoes: after all, I wear my slippers around the hotel. Still, if not: a woman who changes her outfit regularly but NOT her shoes … isn’t that a poser? She says good morning every day and doesn’t act in an outrageous manner, doesn’t talk really loudly!! Two newbies appeared this morning and here is how I know they are newbies: newby 1: got to the bottom of the stairs and was faced with the door arrangement: frames, windows/glass in only one third of the fittings; no In or Out signs to guide us, no handles on the TWO doors … What does he do? Where does he go? He can see into the dining room but how does he get there? He stood still, standing close to the first door, looked furtively around for a few seconds as he appeared to be reviewing the bigger picture. As he did so, his hand slowly and carefully got to grips with the door and he ever so gently pushed to see if it would open! The door gave and he went through it. Classic body language kicked in then as he got to the middle of the room, in front of the breakfast bar and stood facing the bar, looking at the goods on offer and stood still, stroking his chin as he assessed the situation. newby 2: a repeat performance to the bottom of the stairs and the uncertainty over the doors. Newby 2 was transfixed almost, however, and then hopped from foot to foot as he started to panic. Then he launched at the second door, the one with the frosted glass in it! Of course it opened. He then almost faltered his way into the room, looking nervously from table to table as he wondered where he might be allowed to sit. He mouthed good morning to me as he launched at the first free table in the end, put his key down and then went over to the breakfast bar. I now assess that newby 2 is German: he got to the bar just about came to attention, almost clicking his heels together as he did so; and then bowed his head in that short, sharp downward movement that is so suggestive of a Teuton! No offence; but that’s how it went! The bananas were safe with me, today, in case you were worried! Oh and the bit about the waiter and the air guitar isn't true. The bit about the Status Quo looking bloke is true, though! Of course, I’d go mad if I thought someone was reporting on me in the way that I have just reported on the people here: assessing my newbiness, my watch (gentlemanly and unassuming of course!), how I got through the door … why I cut my banana with a knife and fork … where did I put those little packets of jam which, after all, I didn’t eat and didn’t leave on the table … and why oh why does he always wear the same slippers: apart from on Thursday when he was dressed in shirt, tie and excellent, highly polished, Church shoes! Let me record here and now that the Hotel Europa Garni in Sarajevo launders my shirts to the highest standards I’ve come across anywhere: clean, starchy and exceptionally well ironed. The crispiness stays in the shirt all day! Well done those plucky launderers. I’d say laundresses since I know they’re females but it would be sexist of me. It’s time to drift to the office but I can’t go as my digital camera batteries are just about to finish charging and I don’t want to miss the moment! DW

Frank pointed me at two Financial Times surveys yesterday: both concerning MBA programmes ... the world's best. They rank the programmes according to a list of variables. Being the way I am, I set up a correlation matrix for each of the two survey results and here is what I found: interesting stuff! I know it might be seen as a bit esoteric and far removed from GCSE and A level but since MBAs and other Business School offerings are at the top end of what we do, here is my full listing of correlation coefficients based on the FT’s surveys of International MBA and Executive MBA Programmes. Note the top ratings in both surveys are salary related issues … they are negative because the top ranking value is 1 and the bottom ranking is 100 or 50 depending on whether it’s the International MBA programme or the Executive MBA programme under review; whereas the highest salary is the largest number in its series. I should add that a recommendation from a friend/alumnus is also a key variable for the International MBA programme. I also think these results are telling because the only variables that are worthy of mention are salary and career prospects: highly focused people as I said last night. Art for art’s sake be damned! Notice that MBA students consider it a DISADVANTAGE to have someone on the faculty with a doctorate! Languages are relatively unimportant although the International stream sees them as more important than the executive stream: this makes sense! Even the international MBAs, though, don’t see the internationalisation of faculty as important: globalisation is clearly a home grown issue! The executive MBA students see research rankings as a barrier to a good programme whereas the international students see research as being among the more important features of a good MBA programme. One factor that isn’t included in the list of variables is the respondents’ age, length of work experience and similar factors: I think they would be revealing. Blogger doesn't cope with tables at all ... at least I can't get the HTML to stop it putting a HUGE blank space in this post. So, click here for the full version of this post: Duncan's analysis of the FT MBA Surveys You can find the raw data here on the FT.com web site, at least for a while: look for the MBA Rankings table in the middle of the page. Thanks to Frank for pointing me at these data. DW

From Lagos, Nigeria. please i need assistance with the standard costing: a technique at variance with modern management. it is a project topic i came across in CIMA magazine and i am now working on it. the problem is i haven't got enough materials on it. and if possible i would like to know companies that employ standard costing and companies that don't thank you for your assistance I replied as follows: Hi there! You need to tell me a bit about who you are, where you are and why you are doing this and then I'll help if I can. Ismaila wrote back: my name is ... ismaila and i reside in ... nigeria. i am also a CIMA foundation student. i want the information because i am carrying out a project on it for my wife who is at the lagos state university (LASU) here in nigeria.she is in her final year and we haven't got enough material for the project. all we want is some assistance. thank you for your assistance. I then asked: OK, Ismaila, give me a day or two and I'll tell you what I can. What kind of resources do you have there: do you have good textbooks eg by Drury and Horngren ... or even mine? Which Journals and magazines on accountancy, too? Ismaila responded: i have drury, lucey and a report on the topic by drury in cima magazine. if i can get more journals or reports it will do just fine. thank you so much. yours, ismaila Finally, I said: Hello again, Ismaila, The answer to your question is very confusing for a lot of people. The latest management accounting work will say that standard costing is old fashioned and we should all worry about activity based costing (ABC) and management (ABM), the balanced scorecard (BSC), Just in Time Management (JIT), Backflush Costing; and all sorts of other things. The reality is that the vast majority of businesses around the world that need a cost accounting system to provides valuable information for management decisions making could do worse than consider at least a partial standard costing system. Not all businesses can benefit from the BSC, ABC, ABM and so on: they simply don't have the expertise to install it and the expertise to use it. Take your own situation in Nigeria: take a look at the average small and medium sized business and assess the likelihood that it could sustain these MIS regimes. Are they even computerised? If computerised, are they able to afford the software to manage their data. If they don't have this software, is their accountant and the non financial staff able to program their own MIS to deal with these requests? The same applies in Europe, the USA, Australia and anywhere you care to name. Not everyone has and can use the more modern systems. So, back to Standard Costing (SC). SC is not always appropriate; but it is relatively simple to understand when we are discussing such things as material prices, wage rates and variable overhead rates. Consider the price and usage variances for materials, for example: with a bit of practice, they are really not that bad. Management all over the world has got used to standard costing variances and providing the right variances are calculated and reported on accurately, they are often satisfied with the accountant's variance analysis. Where SC goes wrong is when it is applied using out of date standards: I have been working over the last three years or so with organisations that have been using standards that are 10 or even 20 years old. Honestly! Clearly, standards need to be accurate and up to date. ABC was born out of frustration by non accountants: accountants can't claim the credit for its development. The problem the non accountants had was that SC was kept at a very general level and absorption costing was used in such a way as to be meaningless. Appropriate SC, up to date standards, accurate and timely reporting all help to keep SC useful. Moreover, when the management accountant works hand in hand with his production and other non financial managers, they can all use SC to provide good quality MIS information! This is a very brief overview of the situation Ismaila and I hope it helps you to kick start your reading and thinking ... for your wife, too! Best wishes DW

I just love this name and hope she doesn't mind me saying so: Pei Pei Lim wrote and asked Dear Mr.Duncan, I am [an] international student studying in Australia. I am now taking Management Accounting subjects for my summer course and i have read through ur website about costing system. But, however i am still not very clear about the difference between the overview of job consting system and the batch costing system since it's quite similar when presenting this system.So, can you please tell me more about batch and job costing system? Thank you. ... I am not surprised that you might find batch costing and job costing confusing. A job is generally defined as something that a business will do once: build one house in a certain style, repair your television with a certain problem … all one off. This means that we can accumulate the costs for that job and that job alone quite, or relatively, easily. A batch is a group of things that go together to comprise a job! In other words, we could consider the building of a batch of 10 identical tables or a batch of 1000 identical photographs being printed. We then consider the direct and indirect costs of ALL items together as the cost of the batch. Similarly, we absorb the costs of administration and other period costs on a batch by batch basis, too. I hope that’s clearer now but please let me know if you have any more questions and I hope you are nowhere near those terrible bush fires around Canberra. DW

You've just got to go and take a look at this: looks British, too, which came as a bit of a surprise. Wacky we might be but I didn't think we were that wacky: The world's first ... Is it legal is my question. DW

I forgot to say that I forgot to bring my second adapter to the office meaning that since I had let the laptop battery drain to 0 last night an the basis that it's good for it, I am now in the middle of balancing the charging of two separate batteries at the same time. In the end it means that my gloriously well thought out strategy of treating both batteries like gentlemen will probably end up by giving them both the pox! It's boiling here today. The thaw is well under way now and the heating in the office is intense. I wish I'd left my vest off now (by vest, dear American readers, I think I mean undershirt ... and what you call a vest is really a waistcoat: no offence, just trying to educate and cross any cultural divide!). Just sat for half an hour with the window wide open. I'm going to have to open it again in a minute. Snow is still falling off rooves a bit and last night I had to smile as I trudged my weary way. Remember I told you yesterday that there are warnings outside some buildings that snow could come crashing down at any moment: I hadn't anticipated the paranoia that that could breed. One chap, young too, wanted to go into the baker's and he stood back from the building and poised as if he were in the blocks about to set off in the 100 metre dash, then when he felt secure, he launched himself across the final three metres and flew through the door. Needless to say, no snow came tumbling down on him or anyone else within a senight!! Looked good, though. I can only imagine his exit, crust in hand!!! DW

Alright, I'm taking a break from all that! Here's a competition. See how many of you lovely people are sitting up and taking note. You know when you switch on your mobile phone after you let the battery drain completely after hearing the warning beep and saying, "Oh, in a minute" and then forgetting it completely and leaving it at home when you go to work then having to go back to get it ... ? Yeah? OK, well here's the question: What is the awe inspiring, uplifting and motivational message that I have put into my new mobile phone: see SIM card saga for details of the phone. Answers by email please and the winner will be the first to get it right. If there are no entrants then you may NEVER find out what that pesky message might be! Need a clue? OK, here: it's in Latin it's two words pxx vxxxxxxx Now I can't say fairer than that, can I? Supplementary question: what does pxx vxxxxxxx mean? What do you mean Latin's a dead language? It spawned this quiz didn't it? More than that, when you get the question in the pub quiz that asks what this phrase is and what it means, you won't be so angry then, will you? You can thank me later! DW

Did I tell you that I hurt my back last November: sitting badly in a chair that was designed for someone a lot shorter than 1.88 metres did it I think. I was in agony for two - three weeks and was stiff as a board for another couple of weeks and then careful for another shed load of weeks. Today I realised that I don't have any of the worries that I've been experiencing. I get out of bed like a twenty year old again ... well, OK, a twenty year old dog or cat; but still! A nice touch here in sunny Sarajevo as I walked around at the weekend and again today. Now that we've been hit by a thaw, there are warnings and barriers all over the place that show people where there could be a cascade of heavy snow and icicles falling from easing troughs and rooves. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of concern anywhere else. Well done those Sarajevans! DW

This just came in from Kansas: Hello, I was just perusing the net and came across your slides on assessing the affective domain. I was impressed by the quality of your material - thank you for access to such a valuable resource. Cindy There you are: another page well worth the trouble. Thanks Cindy DW

Forgot to mention that we had a thaw on Friday and again as I walked to the office yesterday, Saturday, morning. I wrote and told everyone how warm it was getting. I then walked past a window on the way to the loo later on to find that it was absolutely heaving it down with snow. No real thaw here then! DW