Interpreting Average Cost The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) a...

Interpreting Average Cost The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Hackett Group, a consulting firm, partnered to study the trends in the nature of, and amount spent on, the accounting function in corporations. A key finding was that the world’s best accounting departments were able to function effectively at relatively low cost; these departments’ total costs were only about 1% of their firm’s total revenues. In contrast, less efficient accounting departments required, on the average, 1.4% of total revenue, 40% higher than the best results. The world-class accounting departments were also faster in preparing regular financial reports (less than two days for the best departments, compared to five to eight days for the others). The study also found that larger firms spent less on accounting:

Required Prepare a brief critical review of these research results. What questions would you have for the researchers who presented these results?