Cost Control by Regression Analysis.
The accounting fraternity has employed regression analysis rather infrequently. This article presents an application of multiple regression analysis to cost control. The context of the application is the consumer finance industry where extensive decentralization makes effective cost control extremely important. The consumer finance industry is made up of companies whose principal activity is making personal installment cash loans under state small loan laws. The cost behavior model employed in this article is developed from the results of multiple regression analysis of cost and other operating data of branch offices of a major consumer finance chain. While the consumer finance industry is used as the basis, it should be emphasized that the procedure outlined would be applicable to other types of businesses as well. The article shows that an important requirement for the applicability of the procedure is the existence of a relatively large number of homogeneous operating units. Consumer finance companies meet this requirement particularly well. However, other types of business also operate with large numbers of homogeneous units-food including service chains and lodging chains. The procedure outlined would, therefore, be applicable to them as well.
- DOI
- 10.2308/tar-4487319
- Volume
- 41 (2)
- Pages
- 235-238
- Language
- en
- Export
- BibTeX
- Sources
- openalex crossref