Throughput Accounting: A Guide to Constraint Management

Every so often, a completely new idea comes along that can be described as either refreshing, controversial, or both. The theory of constraints, or constraint management, is the new, revolutionary idea that has caught the accounting profession's attention. Developed upon the theory of constraints management philosophy from the physics-based writings of Eliyahu Goldratt, the theory of constraints contends that constraints, or bottleneck resources, prevent organizations from achieving better performance and declares that a company must first determine its overriding goal, and then create a system that clearly defines the main capacity constraint that will allow it to maximize that goal.

Throughput Accounting: A Guide to Constraint Management—written by renowned accounting expert Steven Bragg—broadens the throughput accounting concept to cover every possible accounting function.

This visionary book:

Shows CFOs, controllers, and accounting managers how to increase efficiency and save money using throughput-related techniques

Discusses the impact of throughput concepts on all areas of the accounting function

Describes how accounting systems realigned to employ throughput concepts can issue financial statements in accordance with GAAP

Explores how the accounting department can assist other parts of the company by providing better measurements and reports on profit performance

The goal of throughput accounting is to increase a company's profits by focusing strictly on the management of the company's bottleneck resource. Beginning with an introduction to the concepts of constraint management, Throughput Accounting: A Guide to Constraint Management clearly explores how the traditional budgeting and capital budgeting models can be adapted to integrate throughput concepts, as well as how control systems can be designed to warn of problems related to the constraint and several supporting functions. In addition, this seminal book shows which reports and metrics to use in a throughput environment, as well as how this information can be extracted from an accounting system designed to accumulate information for reports that conform to generally accepted accounting principles.