Financial and Nonfinancial Performance Measures
The overhead variances discussed in this chapter are examples of financial performance
measures. As the preceding examples illustrate, nonfinancial measures such as those
related to capacity utilization and physical measures of input usage also provide useful
information. Returning to the Webb example one final time, we can see that nonfinancial
measures that managers of Webb would likely find helpful in planning and controlling its
overhead costs include the following:
1. Quantity of actual indirect materials used per machine-hour, relative to quantity of
budgeted indirect materials used per machine-hour
2. Actual energy used per machine-hour, relative to budgeted energy used per
machine-hour
3. Actual machine-hours per jacket, relative to budgeted machine-hours per jacket
These performance measures, like the financial variances discussed in this chapter and
Chapter 7, can be described as signals to direct managers’ attention to problems. These