Budgeting and responsibility accounting In the example in Chapter 14 of the text, the new responsibility accounting system helps top management achieve their profit maximisation goals by ensuring that sales managers accept a rush order only if that order’s profit exceeds the incremental cost of rushing the order. Variances should be used to raise questions and direct attention to employees who should have answers – variances should not be used to fix the blame. For example, a marketing manager may decide to run an extra advertising campaign. If the extra sales’ [AQ12] profits more than offset the advertisement’s costs, the manager should be commended, not penalised.
