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Revenue center – is an internal business unit, whose manager is only responsible for sales achieved. It is a cost centre where production of goods is done such as in steel rolling mill hot mill, cold mill, hardening, polishing and grinding departments can be cost centres. The number of production cost centres in a factory depends upon the nature of industry, type of work performed and the size of the factory. It is essential to differentiate between controllable costs and uncontrollable costs while judging the performance of such centres. A manager responsible for a particular cost centre will be held responsible for only controllable costs.
For example, consider a company’s legal department, accounting department, research and development, advertising, marketing, and customer service a cost center. Responsibility Center refers to a particular segment or unit of an organization for which a particular manager, employee, or department is held responsible and accountable for its business goals and objectives. It refers to the part of the company where a manager has authority and responsibility.
By this, the need for apportionment of common input and output is minimised if not altogether eliminated. This makes it essential that the boundaries of different profit centres/divisions be clearly demarcated to preclude overlapping of activities. In the absence of well-defined boundaries and consequent overlapping of operations, unit managers may tend to take credit for everything that goes well and blame the other division for whatever goes wrong. The primary goal of a profit centre is to earn the desired level of profit.
Mostly profit centres are created in an organisation in which they sell products or services outside the company. In some cases, profit centres may be selling products or services within the company. For example, repairs and maintenance department in a company can be treated as a profit centre if it is allowed to bill other production departments for the services provided to them.
Responsibility Center
Technological advancements have been able to reduce expenses in revenue centers as well as bring non-traditional revenue centers to non-retail companies that work in manufacturing or service industries. This can be done by setting up websites which offer products directly from the supplier. This reduces cost by shortening the distribution channel and cuts out wholesalers and retailers.
Consumers using mobile devices may be willing to buy more products directly from manufacturers, enhancing revenue. Many people burned out trying to raise their departments income stats. What saved me was coming up with ideas to pull in Internet revenue. MissMuffet May 14, 2011 While I can see the reasoning behind increasing sales and profit margins I find this approach quite annoying. Last month I started a belly dance class, and before we even met the teacher there was someone from the gym trying to sell us special costumes, jewelry and scarves to ‘enhance the experience’. In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether a business runs a dedicated center or, as Windchime mentioned, expects staff to come up with ideas.
For example, the manager of a furniture department in a store is responsible for making a good amount of profit on furniture sold. The cost or expense centre looks after all the cost-related activities. The responsibility of the cost centre manager is to control costs, excluding revenues. In large companies with multiple products revenue centers will be responsible for meeting revenue target for each product. The problem will arise if all revenues are added together into a total of all products. The revenue manager will then be able to make up any losses in revenue by taking the revenue from the ones that outperformed the targets to the ones that underperformed, thereby causing a loss in overall profits.
Setting prices on products or services is an example of revenue center managers being unable to undertake marketing decisions. There are various types of responsibility centres which are responsible for expense, profit, revenue and investment etc. under this system the managers are responsible for activities of segments. The manager of an investment centre has more authority and responsibility than the manager of either a cost centre or a profit centre. Besides controlling costs and revenues, he has investment responsibility too.
Accounting dictionary
This management accounting system focuses on achieving profitability and control by dividing the organization into minor divisions. These divisions are called responsibility https://1investing.in/ centres headed by managers assigned to that centre. This is a centre which has the responsibility of generating and maximising profits is called profit centre.
Cost, Revenue, Profit and Investment centres are also known as Responsibility centres.
An impersonal cost centre is one that comprises a place or piece of equipment . The authorities identify the deviations between budgeted and actual targets. Delegation of authority and responsibility to make managers more responsible. Here, all the levels of the organization from top to bottom are part of this accounting process. Responsibility calculations at each level of the organization enhance the overall performance.
Typically revenue centre is marketing or sale unit wh8ich do not have authority to set selling price and are not charged for the cost of goods they market. A responsibility centre is called a profit centre when the manager is held responsible for both costs and revenues and thus for profit. The difference between the revenue earned and costs incurred will be profit. When a revenue centre is accountable for responsibility centre gets revenue from output, it will be called a profit Centre. Residual income method is favoured in those cases where managers of responsibility centres are autonomous and accountable for their performances and make their own investment decisions. A centre which is concerned with carrying an adequate return on investment is known as investment centre.
It is a centre mainly devoted to raising revenue with no responsibility for production. The main responsibility of managers of such centres is to generate sale revenue. Such managers have nothing to do with the cost of manufacturing a product or in the area of investment of assets. But he is concerned with control of marketing expenses of the product. An expense centre is a responsibility centre in which inputs, but not outputs, are measured in monetary terms. Responsibility accounting is based on financial information relating to inputs and outputs .
COMPANY
Responsibility accounting is a system of dividing an organization into similar units, each of which is to be assigned particular responsibilities. Decisions regarding the size and direction of marketing and sales activities based on the knowledge of the market. The output of a responsibility centre may either be meant for internal consumption or for outside customers. Cost centers are created for accounting conveniences of cost and their control.
Revenue center managers should not be allowed to make marketing decisions. For example, if a revenue center manager is allowed to set the revenue target, he will maximise revenue. Furthermore, it could be argued that pure revenue centers do not actually exist because no part of an organization operates without expending some business resources.
However, this means that performance evaluations are also limited to one variable which is usually not enough to see the performance of a business division. Hence, a manager of a revenue center could be using unnecessarily expensive and risky ways to increase sales, which could decrease profit margins and increase the likelihood of bad debts. Emilie is a Certified Accountant and Banker with Master’s in Business and 15 years of experience in finance and accounting from corporates, financial services firms – and fast growing start-ups. Responsibility centres can be classified by the scope of responsibility assigned and decision-making authority given to individual managers. Since the basis of their evaluation is sales, these centers have no reason to control costs. It may be a warehouse, a department, a machine in the factory, or an individual.
- The inputs and the outputs of the profit centres should be capable of separate measurement.
- This leads to a motivated workforce and the successful application of responsibility accounting.
- Top management does not allow profit centre divisions to buy from outside sources if there is idle capacity within the firm.
- Engineered expense centre usually are found in manufacturing operations.
- Look to see if the actual amount is greater or less than the budgeted amount.
- The criterion for the evaluation of the revenue center is the amount of revenues from sales in comparison with the sales budget.
However, it becomes important for management to realize that one should not be too focused or process-oriented, which would cripple the initial objects set. A company is most likely to sabotage itself by doing so when it focuses on the hierarchical scheme of things. As a result, outcomes may not be achieved, and targets may just become numbers to frown upon. The inputs and the outputs of the profit centres should be capable of separate measurement.
A profit center is the part of organisation in which organisation identify its net profit. We know that we can get net profit only comparing revenue with expenses. So, main duty of this part of organisation to make budget in which % margin of total revenue is fixed. A revenue center is the part of organisation in which organisation gets revenue from sales of products or providing of services.
Difference: Revenue Center vs. Profit Center
Each revenue unit addition adds a potential profit line to the company’s overall profit potential. A revenue center is the business operation responsible for generating a company’s sales revenue. These centers may be departments, divisions or business units that have direct interaction with consumers to sell goods and services. Companies usually break down their business operations into revenue centers to determine the profitability of each good or service it produces.
Production and service departments are good examples of cost centres in a manufacturing firm. Engineered expense centre usually are found in manufacturing operations. Warehousing, distribution, trucking and similar units in the marketing organization also may be engineered expense centre and so many certain responsibility centre within administrative and support department. In an engineered expense centre the output multiplied by the standard cost of each unit produced represents what the finished product should have cost. When this cost is compared to actual costs, the difference between the two represents the efficiency of the organization unit being measured. A cost or expense centre is a segment of an organisation in which the managers are held responsible for the cost incurred in that segment but not for revenues.
The various managers and their lines of responsibility should be fully defined. Responsibility of generation of revenue and incurrence of expenditures. Emilie is a Certified Accountant and Banker with Master’s in Business and 15 years of experience in finance and accounting from large corporates and banks, as well as fast-growing start-ups. The department also develops credit policies that impact debt collection in the organization. Generating reports for each centre consumes plenty of time in communication and analysis. The performance evaluation is based on comparisons with these budgets.