[animalwithin]

BEC is murdering me with all the cost accounting. I had a horrible cost accounting teacher and I remember loathing those classes so I never had a good fundamental understanding of those concepts and I’m essentially missing every question.

Surprisingly, the Plus videos aren’t helping me as much with these topics as they did with FAR. I’ve tried both NINJA notes and Roger videos and those haven’t helped. I need something that really dumbs down the material because I’m just not getting it.

Any advice, tips, resources as to how to grasp these concepts?

[Lindsey_p87]

Have you tried youtube? Also, if there is anything specifically tripping you up, someone on here might be able to explain better (or the Ninja study group for BEC).

AUD - 79
BEC - 82
FAR - 79
REG - 86

DONE

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[jeff]

Maybe try the hot spot cost accounting video? Have you read the NINJA Book?

AUD - 79
BEC - 80
FAR - 76
REG - 92

Jeff Elliott, CPA (KS)
NINJA CPA | NINJA CMA | NINJA CPE | Another71

[animalwithin]

I haven't tried YouTube yet, was wondering if anyone had a specific channel on YouTube they recommended above others.

Jeff, I'll give the hot spot videos a shot. I haven't looked into the NINJA books.

Nothing specific I'm having issues with, just cost accounting in general I'm not getting. I can get plugging in numbers into the different formulas when they're straight forward. But the more complex questions where only certain costs are factored in, a certain amount of units, etc. are where I get lost. Knowing what to account for and when, and knowing which of the provided numbers to use is just something I'm not understanding.

[bigstakk]

Cost accounting tripped me up too and took a few days of studying to finally get it to click. I personally don’t find any value in watching videos and need to read over the material, take notes, and practice problems to get things to make sense. Of all of the topics that are heavily tested on the exam, while this deserves attention, I wouldn’t let this get you that down if you are strong in the more heavily tested material. GL!

AUD - 81
BEC - 87
FAR - 80
REG - 82

______________

Ethics Exam - 90%
Licensed CPA in CA

[Icarito]

Agreed. You can pass BEC without being super strong in Cost Accounting. Make up for it with corporate gov/IT/variances

FAR - 80 (4/1/2019)

BEC - 82 (9/7/2019)

AUD - 81 (11/23/2019)

REG - 94 (3/9/2020)

[animalwithin]

Thank you all for the suggestions! Videos helped me tremendously in FAR so I was shocked to see that they're not helping me as much in this regard.

I'll definitely go hard on the corporate gov/IT!

[Lindsey_p87]

I think your best bet is spending a couple days doing nothing but Cost questions, assuming you can afford to spend the time on that. Write down the process for each question you get wrong. Eventually it will start to make sense.

AUD - 79
BEC - 82
FAR - 79
REG - 86

DONE

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[CPA_Focused]

Honestly, cost accounting was hard for me too! The best way to grasp the concept is through multiple choice questions, and ot just doing them at random and reviewing the solution – but reviewing the solution and coming up with a step by step way to apply the concept. WACC was a trouble area for me until I used this method – I literally had to come up with the steps to arrive at the answer, understand the big picture then apply. This is a FRUSTRATING Process – but you can do it!

[animalwithin]

I can afford to spend a few days isolating cost accounting, I think that's the only way I'm going to understand this stuff rather than blindingly doing MCQ's on this topic. I'm giving the NINJA videos a chance and then checking out the book.

[animalwithin]

I think variances are giving me the most issues because other than the ones that are straight plug of the numbers, most questions provide you with a large amount of numbers, usually in a table or graph and I'm completely lost when I get to those.

Most times there's a lot of erroneous info so I don't know how to sift through all of that, which numbers to divide/multiply, which to use etc. The explanations don't help that much either as they're usually very long-winded. I'm just looking for something that can simplify the process of going through those types of questions.

[aaronmo]

I remember variance being pretty easy in college…and having a clear cut grid. Somehow, CPA prep made them into a nightmare, with a convoluted approach. I had Becker, and thought Becker did a very poor job of teaching it. It really isn't that difficult a concept…and shouldn't be that hard, but Becker made it much more awful than I remembered it.

What drove me nuts was the COSO cube and IT crap – they had inter-related concepts, with arbitrary divisions, and I wasn't interested enough in the topic to work hard on it.

AUD - 96
BEC - 84
FAR - 89
REG - 86

Aaron and always remember, YMMV

I profit from your CPE frustration. You're welcome.

[Lindsey_p87]

Take this with a grain of salt because I got like, one variance question on my exam. But I thought I was going to get assaulted with variance questions, so I spent a solid day just straight up memorizing the formulas and doing every Ninja question on variances until I got each one correct. It was kind of a wasted effort for me, but I know a lot of people see variances on their exams. It worked in terms of getting the material down, though.

AUD - 79
BEC - 82
FAR - 79
REG - 86

DONE

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[animalwithin]

Lindsey, a lot of people are saying that they don't get that many variance questions on the exam but you are correct, can't assume that going in. Definitely have to start by memorizing equations, there's just too many to keep stock of and understanding concepts broadly won't really help if I don't know the equations.

[Lindsey_p87]

Aren't there only 8 variance formulas? Or am I remembering that wrong?

AUD - 79
BEC - 82
FAR - 79
REG - 86

DONE

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[Earla Riopel (NYCARE)]

For some, BEC is a ‘piece of cake', or a ‘walk in the park', but after my recent Q3 2019 result, my score went down by 12 points due to Managerial/Cost accounting. There was quite a bit of Managerial/Cost Accounting in my last BEC exam in Las Vegas.

I never like Managerial/Cost Accounting courses, because of it, I suffered. So, I decided not to take any BEC exams until I finish all my Intermediate Managerial/Cost accounting, Business/Corporate Finance, Economics and Eglish courses. I am currently a full-time accounting student in a nearby community college. Because of my undergraduate degrees which are too old, beyond 10 years, I have been approved of fundings, including grants. I hardly pay for my tuition fees, mostly the textbooks and personal living expenses only.

Anyway, back to your problem, I notice Becker, Wiley, and Ninja have decent coverage of Managerial/Cost accounting, but for me, it's not enough. If you can do a self-study study, here are my recent BEC-related textbooks I want you to check:
(1) Contemporary Business Mathematics with Canadian Applications. Latest Edition; check for a US version.
(2) Introduction to Corporate Finance, by Laurence Booth and W. Sean Cleary, 4th Edition, Wiley
(3) Managerial Accounting 5th Canadian Edition. Wiley. By: Weygandt, Kimmel, Kieso, and Aly; check for a US version.
(4) Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, Eighth Canadian Edition Plus MyAccountingLab with Pearson eText; check for the US version.
(5) Macroeconomics: Canada in the Global Environment, Tenth Edition, North York, Ontario: Pearson; check for a US edition.
(6) Economics for business (2018), Pearson Education Limited, John Sloman, Dean Garratt, Jon Guest, and Elizabeth Jones
(7) Auditing A Practical Approach, Extended Canadian Edition, Moroney, Campbell, Hamilton, Warren; check for the US version.
(8) Technically-Write, Eighth Canadian Edition, 2011 by Ron Blicq. (Pearson); check for the US version.
I went back to UBC for 4 semesters in May2018/April2019 and continued schooling at nearby Douglas College. Most of my professors have their Masters, Canadian CPAs, and a few PhDs, thus, it helps to understand the materials well.

I hope this helps you with your next BEC exam; I know for me it will. Good luck and happy studying.

AUD - 49
BEC - NINJA in Training
FAR - NINJA in Training
REG - 55

Passed: AUD (75%'08/77%'17), REG (76%'09) & BLaw(77%'99); highest on FAR (63%'11/'15) & BEC (63%'11). Credit Hours: USA(PH)-BCom'85(4yr-grandfathered); UBC-(DAP'02/'19); DC-(BBA-Acctg.'22-4th yr)=over 150 hrs credits

[Author]

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