Introduction to Accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Introduction to Accounting - Essay Example Fixed costs are the costs that do not change even if sales of a product changes. These costs are incurred even if there no sales made. On the other hand, the cost will not change even when sales made are very high. An example is the printer that prints newspapers. The cost of producing incurred con the printer when it prints 10 newspapers is the same as the cost for printing 1000 newspapers. Therefore, the cost of producing newspapers in terms of printer’s cost is a fixed cost. Contribution is the amount that remains after all variable costs have been subtracted from the sales revenue. Contribution caters for the fixed costs and it leads to the net income. Contribution mainly deals with the profit made by selling the products. It is very important because it helps in determining the amount of goods that need to be sold in order to recover the costs incurred during production. For example, it helps in determining the amount of whisky products that have to be sold in order to get the cost of producing the whisky. This is a point in production that occurs when the amount of cost is equal to the amount of the total sales of the products. Although many businesses are after making profits, there are some points when the businesses neither undergo loss nor get profits. This is the breakeven point of the business. Graphically, breakeven point is achieved when the total cost curve meets the total revenue costs. An example of breakeven point is when the cost of producing whisky is equal to the amount achieved from the sales of the whisky. This means that the company neither gets profit nor loss. Breakeven point is important in recognizing the relevance of variable costs and the fixed costs. Despite this importance, breakeven point cannot be overstated since it cannot help in business decision making. This is a resource that is scarce and its supply is very low. Limiting factor is also known as the principle budget factor.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods for Dissertation

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods for providing near real time traffic information - Dissertation Example TOMTOM Company: Traffic Navigation System: Navigation system holds most significance in the present day lives of people allowing them to obtain information on traffic congestion and road safety, targeted towards reducing the negative effects of traffic problems. Navigation systems are owned particularly to obtain high quality information on traffic routes and in destinations that are unfamiliar for the drivers. Navigation systems provide the owners and drivers with suggestions on which route would be safer and suitable for them to reach to a particular destination (SWOV Fact Sheet – Safety effects of navigation systems 2010). TomTom Company provides its customers with a TomTom navigation device that allows them to obtain traffic updates on the screen of the device. Mobile phones of individuals can be connected with these devices. The company can keep a track of where these people are exactly moving and thus provide them with the accurate traffic updates on the location where t hey are present at a particular time. Other quality traffic information sources are used along with the availability of this device thus making the real time traffic information being available more effectively. ... One of the advantages of the navigation tool is that it provides road safety by allowing owners and drivers with suggestions to choose the most suitable route. This reduces the exposure of the users to dangers. With suitable route being suggested, the travel time also gets reduced. Users have to search less for the suitable routes on their own (SWOV Fact Sheet – Safety effects of navigation systems 2010). HD Traffic real-time traffic information is the basis for the navigation tool offered by TomTom. GPS and GSM systems are the fundamental concepts of the system that allows reliable information on traffic to the users of the navigation tool (White Paper – How TomTom’s HD TrafficTM and IQ RoutesTM data provides the very best routing n.d.). However a disadvantage of the tool is that adjustment of the tool needs to be done by the owners and doing this while driving is a risky task. However the overall mental stress and effort of the users reduce with the use of a na vigation tool. Moreover, traffic problems are reported to users at early stage so that they can avoid congestions and problems related to road traffic on their routes. However during certain times, information provided by these tools might be incorrect, particularly if the road maps on the tools are not updated regularly. Wrong information leads to wrong decision making in terms of choosing any particular route. Another major disadvantage of the tool is its dependency on categorization of roads which makes it difficult to determine which questions on the desirability of road categorization considering the safety on the roads (SWOV Fact Sheet – Safety effects of navigation systems 2010). GOOGLE Company: Google Maps, Traffic Sensors, and Crowdsourcing: Google maps, traffic sensors