In particular, the financial service company is profitable only if the future revenues obtained from current loans, investments, and insurance premiums exceed the cost of the funds associated with these revenues (which is analogous to cost of sales in a manufacturing company) by an amount that is sufficient to cover operating expenses and losses. Health care organizations have tried to use the DRG system to standardize costs; they, and society, must face the fact that the current control and delivery system is unworkable. Nonprofit organizations lack the advantages for control that the profit measure provides; they must account for contributed capital, a category that rarely occurs in a business. Expenditure decisions are subjective for nonprofits; nevertheless, they have succeeded in becoming more efficient in response to shrinking sources of funds.
In spite of these differences, the essentials of the management control systems in service organizations are the same as those described in the earlier chapters of this text.