B7AF201 Cost Accounting Assessment 1 Brief 2026 | Dublin Business School

B7AF201 Assessment Brief 

Groups / Student Must Submit:- 

• The final group report as specified below.
• A word document incorporating minuted notes of group meetings.
• A peer evaluation form completed by all group members, assessing each member’s level of contribution, effort, and participation in the project. The right is reserved to vary the grade awarded to individual group members should circumstances warrant.

Riverside Retail Plc (The Company)

Riverside Retail Plc is a privately owned, traditional department store located in a growing university town in the South of England. The store was founded fifty years ago by the current chairperson’s mother, who gradually expanded the business from a single-floor shop to its current five-floor operation. Upon her retirement, ownership passed equally to her two children, who both remain deeply involved in the day-to-day running of the business. Neither owner has family members willing to succeed them in the business. The store occupies 80,000 square metres of prime retail space in the main shopping district close to the town’s railway station. The management team prides itself on maintaining a “classic department store” feel, with a strong focus on personalised service and long-term customer relationships.

The store has four trading departments (Homeware, Electronics, Womenswear and Children’s Clothing) and a Café & Bistro. Each department is managed by a departmental manager, and recently Emma was appointed departmental manager of the Children’s Clothing Department. She is in her early thirties and is studying part-time for a degree in Management Accounting and Control at the local business school and is currently in her final year.

George is the departmental manager of Womenswear and is also Emma’s uncle. He previously served as a Warrant Officer in the Royal Navy and is approaching his 64th birthday. George and Emma frequently disagree on management issues and often have heated debates in management meetings. Electronics is managed by Nikhil and Homeware by Linda. Both joined Riverside Retail around the same time over thirty years ago as trainee sales assistants and have progressed internally to their current managerial roles. They are now in their mid-fifties and are proud of the fact that they still recognise and greet many regular customers by name.

The Café & Bistro is managed by Marco, who had previously worked as a sous-chef for Riverside Retail for several years before being promoted to café manager. Marco gained some local fame when he won a regional “Fusion Street Food” competition, resulting in a feature in a popular lifestyle magazine and an interview on local radio. This publicity significantly enhanced Riverside Retail’s brand image in the community. However, Marco is known for a short temper and has occasionally shouted aggressively at his two supervisors, Jade and Connor. He maintains very high culinary standards and will discard prepared dishes that he feels do not meet his expectations. Marco spends most of his time in the kitchen area and strongly dislikes administrative tasks, often complaining that they suppress his creativity. The Café & Bistro offers an extensive and inventive “Mediterranean Fusion” menu, but there is a general perception within the company that pricing on several dishes is too low to generate an adequate margin. This suspicion cannot be confirmed as detailed cost information is not currently collected.

Marco updates the menu every fortnight and orders fresh supplies daily from a mix of regional and specialist suppliers. There is no formal stock control system in operation in the Café & Bistro. Much of the kitchen equipment is outdated and has not been subject to regular preventive maintenance. For instance, the main oven has intermittent electrical faults, and the safety guard on the industrial slicer is missing. Marco argues that with investment in refurbishment and modern equipment, he could significantly increase both capacity and sales for the Café & Bistro. Additionally, new UK food safety and allergen-labelling regulations will soon require Riverside Retail to invest heavily in upgraded refrigeration, monitoring and record-keeping systems for the kitchen.

Stock storage is a continuing problem for Riverside Retail. Merchandise for all departments except the Café & Bistro is delivered to a shared central stockroom, while food and beverage deliveries go directly to the café’s back-of-house area. Deliveries to the central stockroom are not systematically checked or counted, and items are placed on any available shelving with no formal layout or coding system. As a result, staff frequently struggle to locate products quickly, and customers often experience long waiting times. All staff have unrestricted access to the stockroom, and on several occasions, customers have accidentally wandered into the area due to poor signage. All records and documentation within the store are maintained using manual systems, including paper-based ledgers and manual time sheets.

Recent Events

Historically, the store has been consistently profitable. However, the most recent annual financial statements reported a small loss for the past trading year. This unexpected loss has caused significant concern for the owners. Prior to receiving these results, and for reasons unrelated to them, the owners had decided to appoint a Chief Executive Officer to relieve some of their management workload and to professionalise the business. They appointed Daniel as the first non-family CEO of Riverside Retail. Daniel has strong retail credentials, having worked for over fifteen years with Aurora & Co, a national department store chain with a reputation for an excellent management training programme and sustained profit growth. Daniel joined Aurora & Co as a graduate trainee and rose to the position of store manager at one of its flagship stores in an affluent London suburb.

In response to the reported loss, the owners convened a store-wide employee meeting to discuss the situation; this was the first time in the store’s history that such a meeting had been held. Prior to the meeting, a suggestion box was introduced and employees were invited to submit proposals for improving the store’s profitability.

Among the anonymous suggestions were: closure of the Children’s Clothing Department; closure of the Café & Bistro; and the introduction of a uniform 6% price reduction across all departments in an attempt to increase sales volume. When the owners attempted to assess the financial implications of these proposals, they quickly discovered that the existing information systems provided only basic figures sufficient for statutory reporting and tax purposes, with very limited management information.

Since Emma is studying for a degree in Management Accounting and Control, she was asked to investigate and compile information that might help evaluate these suggestions. The information she assembled for the previous trading year appears below. It sets out the revenues and certain identifiable costs by department. The owners were so impressed with the clarity and usefulness of this analysis that they asked Emma to consider formally taking on the additional role of Management Accountant for Riverside Retail.

Emma has analysed the behaviour of these departmental costs at different sales levels. Purchases of goods for resale and food and beverages for the Café & Bistro vary in direct proportion to sales levels in all departments. Due to the store’s staffing policy (see note below), non-management wages also vary with sales activity. Departmental expenses such as packaging, cleaning and small consumables similarly appear to vary in line with sales volume, and sales promotion costs show a strong correlation with changes in departmental sales.

Other costs amounting to £450,000 for the year (not included in the schedule above) are regarded as fixed with respect to sales volume. Some of these fixed costs can be traced to specific departments (for example, certain equipment leases), while others relate to the store as a whole and cannot be directly allocated to individual departments.

Note On Staffing Policy

Riverside Retail staffs its departments using a core of full-time employees to cover a minimum level of customer demand, supported by a flexible pool of part-time staff who are scheduled according to need. There is no guaranteed minimum or maximum number of hours for part-time staff, enabling management to align labour hours closely with fluctuations in demand.

Assignment Requirement

You and your team have been retained to work with Emma to prepare a report for the Board of Directors of Riverside Retail Plc.

The report must address the following:

Contents page

Executive summary (a one-page summary of the report highlighting key findings and recommendations)
Detailed responses to the following questions:

Question 1

On the assumption that costs for the forthcoming trading period will not differ significantly from those of the previous period, prepare costing statements showing:

The contribution generated by each department and the total contribution and profit for the store as a whole, assuming all departments remain open.
The contribution by department and the total contribution and profit for the store if the Café & Bistro is closed and all other departments continue to operate.

Question 2

Discuss the financial and non-financial implications of closing the Café & Bistro. Your answer should consider short-term and long-term effects on profitability, customer service, brand image, staff morale and any regulatory or strategic considerations.

Question 3

Identify the main problems that you and Emma would need to address in her new role as Management Accountant of Riverside Retail Plc.
Using the issues identified in part (a), critically explain and propose a detailed plan of
action that Emma, as the newly appointed Management Accountant of Riverside Retail Plc, should undertake to resolve these problems. Your discussion should justify the recommended actions, outline how they can be practically implemented, and evaluate the expected benefits to the organisation’s financial control, decision-making, and overall performance.

• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography

Assessment Criteria 

Please complete table below:

General Assessment Submission Requirements For Students:   

1. Online assignments must be submitted no later than the stated deadline.
2. All relevant provisions of the Assessment Regulations must be complied with.
3. Extensions to assignment submission deadlines will be not be granted, other than in exceptional circumstances. To apply for an extension please go to http://www.dbs- com/Registrar/ and download the Assignment Extension Request Form.
4. Students are required to retain a copy of each assignment submitted, and the submission receipt.
5. Assignments that exceed the word count will be penalised.
6. Students are required to refer to the assessment regulations in their Student Guides and on the Student Website.
7. Dublin Business School penalises students who engage in academic impropriety (i.e. plagiarism, collusion and/or copying). Please refer to the attached referencing guidelines for information on correct referencing.