This study analysed perceptions on the application of cost accounting in the budgeting process, a case of the City of Tshwane (CoT) municipality. Employee perceptions were analysed to determine whether recognised costing techniques were being applied, and if so, were those costing techniques being efficiently and effectively applied. An analysis of the employee perceptions of the reliability of the currently implemented costing techniques for the preparation of budget estimates, together with the employees’ perceptions of management’s implementation and maintenance of the budget estimates, as required by legislation, was also conducted. The research instruments comprise questionnaires that were distributed to all municipal officials at CoT who are responsible for budgeting within their municipal department or division, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected officials. Data collected from the participants were descriptively analysed. This study identified a performance gap between the potential of the costing techniques nominally being used and the manner in which CoT budget officials actually apply them. Based on the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the data, recommendations were made. Some of these recommendations include that officials of the CoT should improve training on the proper application of currently used costing techniques and that the CoT should conduct a pilot study aimed at introducing transfer pricing (TP) and standard costing as their next-generation budget costing techniques. In addition, including decisionmaking tools, such as cost-volume and profit (CVP) analysis in the costing process can add value to the budget costing process if applied as a cost-volume and service (CVS) analysis.

Over the past two decades, research in both the management accounting and marketing disciplines has reported insightful developments, theoretically and empirically, in which both are implicated, yet research into the interface between the two disciplines remains relatively unexplored. In the management accounting literature, a strategically-orientated approach has evolved in which customers, customer satisfaction, customer value and competitive positioning have developed as key management themes requiring a re-evaluation of the existing management accounting information for decision-making. In marketing, research on �market orientation�, has emphasised similar and interrelated themes of customers, competitors, and the interfunctional coordination of organisational activities in the creation of customer value and the ascertainment and calculation of profits. Taking market orientation as a point of departure, in this thesis a conceptual framework is developed which reflects the theoretical links between management accounting and market orientation at a product decision-making level. The undertaking of two in-depth organisational case studies is reported in which market orientation and management accounting for each functional area is analysed and discussed. A greater functional and organisational emphasis on customers� vis-�-vis competitors was found as was an emphasis on informal means of information communication and coordination between functional areas. Despite consistent cross-functional understanding of customers� product-attribute needs in both case studies, the findings indicate the use of �traditional� accounting information for product-level decision-making and an absence of market-orientated accounting information. Exploration and description of the industry and organisational context in both case studies provides an insight into several factors - formality, strategic orientation, organisational structural costs and resource capability � that appear to influence market orientation and the adoption of market-orientated accounting for product decision-making.

The master´s thesis deal with transportation costs occurred in distribution company. It analyses both the evidence and monitoring of the particular costs, and also the range and efficiency of the spent costs. The outcome of my thesis is proposal of the evidence and the methodics for costs´ evaluation during the physical distribution.