Budgets and performance reports should be developed on the basis of responsibility accounting. Responsibility accounting is reporting financial results on the basis of managerial responsibilities within an organization. The result is a set of correlated reports that break down the organization’s overall performance by specific subunits, as shown in Figure 14-4. Note that each report shows actual costs and variances form budget for the current month and the year to date, but only for those that the manager of that subunit controls. Note also the hierarchical nature of the reports: The total cost of each individual subunit is displayed as a single line item on the next-higher-level report