小編導(dǎo)讀：您還會為考試感到煩惱嗎？下面我們一起來看看CIMA也不是想象的那么枯燥，成本理論和結(jié)婚請客人聯(lián)系起來。
       Even holy matrimony isn’t sacred when it comes to the application of cost theory.
　　Victor Sheahan explains why a small wedding could prove to be a false economy.
　　一提到成本理論的應(yīng)用，即便是婚配圣事[#000000]（matrimony — marriage; the state of being married）[/#]也會變得不那么神圣（sacred — connected with God or a god; considered to be holy）。本文作者Victor Sheahan解釋了為什么一場小小的婚禮可能成為一筆不劃算的買賣（a false economy — A false economy refers to an action which saves money at the beginning but which, over a longer period of time, results in more money being wasted than being saved.）。
　　The concepts of fixed and variable overheads, overhead absorption and contribution and marginal costing can be found in a number of CIMA papers. They are indispensable tools for any management accountant but, as I recently found, they can also be applied to situations that are far removed from the world of work.
　　固定和變動管理費(fèi)用、管理費(fèi)用分配、貢獻(xiàn)和邊際成本之類的概念可以在許多CIMA的試卷中找到。對于任何一位管理會計(jì)師來說它們都是不可或缺的工具，但是正如我最近所發(fā)現(xiàn)的，它們還可以被應(yīng)用于與我們的工作完全不搭界的情形之中。
　　I’m about to marry another cost accountant (no one else understands us). As a traditionalist, I’d assumed that my fiancée’s family would be paying for the wedding. When I recovered from the shock of finding that this was no longer so, I asked friends who’d already been through the ordeal what to do. I received advice ranging from “don’t do it” and “elope” to “have a quiet ceremony” and “invite everyone – you get married only once”.
　　我就要與另一位成本會計(jì)師（沒有其他人理解我們）結(jié)婚了。作為一個傳統(tǒng)主義者，我認(rèn)為我的未婚妻家會承擔(dān)婚禮的開銷。當(dāng)我從發(fā)現(xiàn)情況不再是如此的震驚中回過神來的時候，我問了幾個已經(jīng)度過了接下去怎么辦這一嚴(yán)酷考驗(yàn)（ordeal — a difficult or unpleasant experience）的朋友。我得到的建議五花八門，從“那就不結(jié)唄”和“干脆你倆私奔（elope — to run away with sb. In order to marry them secretly）得了”到“搞一個簡單點(diǎn)、不要鋪張的結(jié)婚典禮”和“請上每個人—反正你也就結(jié)一次”。
　　With no consistent guidance, the safest option seemed to be to choose a modest-sized wedding. To invite lots of people was surely financial folly – who wants to spend years repaying the cost of one day’s revelry? One friend joked that, given my job, I could probably calculate to the cent how much it would all cost. What a good idea, I thought. Of course I should tackle it as I would any other budgeting exercise. Suddenly the situation was transformed: far from being a financial nightmare, our wedding was now a relatively basic costing problem. The tricky question of how many people to invite had become a simple equation.
　　因?yàn)闆]有統(tǒng)一的指導(dǎo)意見，最保險的做法似乎是辦一場規(guī)模適中的婚禮。邀請很多人肯定在財務(wù)上很愚蠢（folly — a lack of good judgement; the fact of doing sth stupid; an activity or idea that shows a lack of judgement）— 誰會想要花幾年去償還這一天狂歡（revelry — noisy fun, usually involving a lot of eating and drinking）的代價？一個朋友甚至打趣道，就我的工作，我很有可能把總共要花多少錢計(jì)算到分。這是一個多好的主意啊，我這樣想。當(dāng)然我要以對待其他預(yù)算執(zhí)行的態(tài)度來處理這個難題。突然間情景就轉(zhuǎn)換為：根本談不上成為一場財務(wù)噩夢，我們的婚禮現(xiàn)在是一個相對基礎(chǔ)的成本問題。邀請多少人這個棘手的問題就轉(zhuǎn)換為了一個簡單的等式。
　　Certain aspects of a wedding involve fixed costs whether there are ten guests or 1,000. Into this category I grouped expenses such as the dress, the cake, the entertainment, the flowers, the priest, the photographer and the rings. In this case, I estimated that ?7,500 would cover all these. The main variable costs – ie, those that will change according to the number of guests – are catering, stationery and postage. I assumed that a figure of ?55 per head would cover these.
　　無論你請10位還是1000位來賓，一場婚禮的某些方面總是會涉及到固定成本。我把服裝、蛋糕、娛樂、鮮花、牧師、攝影師和婚戒之類的開銷歸為此類。我估計(jì)所有這些需要7,500歐元。而主要的變動成本—即會隨著來賓人數(shù)變動而變動的開銷—是婚宴、邀請函和郵資。這些費(fèi)用我認(rèn)為每人55歐元差不多就夠了。
　　I understand that the typical wedding present ranges in value from ?75 to ?125 per person. I have assumed that gifts from your closest relatives will be worth more than those from people with whom you have looser ties. In that case, let’s say that the value of the gift declines at a constant rate as the connection becomes more distant – ie, as you invite more guests. We could express this as a formula: y = 200 – 0.75x where y is the value of the gift and x is the number of guests. So the first person invited could be expected to give a gift worth ?199.25 and the 100th person a gift worth ?125. We can also constrain this equation and state that y will never go below ?50. For simplicity, I’m avoiding the tricky area of valuing non-cash gifts – I don’t think there’s a suitable IAS for valuing Aunt Hilda’s handmade quilt.
　　我了解到每位來賓送的婚禮物的價值一般從75歐元到125歐元不等。我還假定你的關(guān)系最緊密的親戚送的禮物的價值應(yīng)該超過那些與你關(guān)系一般的人送的禮物的價值。這樣的話，我們可以說你邀請的來賓越多，禮物的價值就會隨著關(guān)系變得越加疏遠(yuǎn)而以一個恒定的比率下降。我們把上述內(nèi)容以一個方程式表達(dá)：y = 200 – 0.75x，其中y為禮物的價值，x是來賓的數(shù)量。因此*9位受邀來賓所送禮物的價值就預(yù)計(jì)為199.25歐元，第100位的禮物就值125歐元。我們還可以限定這個等式，使y不會低于50歐元。為簡化起見，我回避了為非現(xiàn)金禮物進(jìn)行估值這個麻煩的事情—我不認(rèn)為會有一條合適的IAS來對Hilda阿姨親手縫制的被子進(jìn)行估值。
　　The key question is: how many guests should we have? According to costing theory, you should keep inviting people until the marginal cost equals the marginal revenue. Our marginal cost for each guest is ?55, so we should keep inviting guests (x) until our marginal revenue (y) is ?55. Applying this to the formula y = 200 – 0.75x, we find that x = 193.3, meaning that the ideal number of guests is 193. The panel above shows the situation for various numbers of guests. I worked out cumulative totals for the value of gifts received and for the contribution (the difference between the gift value and the variable cost) using a spreadsheet, so this type of calculation is unlikely to be required in an exam.
　　關(guān)鍵的問題是：我們應(yīng)該邀請多少來賓？依據(jù)成本理論，你應(yīng)該不斷的邀請客人直到邊際成本等于邊際收入。我們估算的每位來賓的邊際成本為55歐元，所以我們應(yīng)該不斷邀請來賓(x)直到我們的邊際收入(y)也為55歐元。將這些都代入方程y = 200 – 0.75x，我們得出x = 193.3，意味著理想的來賓數(shù)目為193人。上面的方框顯示了不同來賓數(shù)量的結(jié)果。我用電子表格求出了收到的禮物的價值和（邊際）貢獻(xiàn)（禮物價值和變動成本之間的差額）的累積數(shù)。當(dāng)然這樣的計(jì)算是不會在考試中作要求的。
　　Conventional wisdom encourages people to have small weddings to “save money”. We can conclude from this case that such thinking overlooks a number of important considerations:
　　■ Guests give gifts. The excess of the gift value over the variable cost of that guest equates to the contribution they provide.
　　■ Weddings entail high fixed costs. Traditional costing theory states that high fixed costs encourage big production runs – ie, lots of guests. Modern thinking argues that few costs are truly fixed, but that’s beyond the scope of this exercise.
　　■ From a financial perspective, there is an optimum number of guests to invite.
　　■ A big guest list means that you don’t have to exclude any friends or relations who might otherwise be insulted. Keeping their “goodwill” has an intangible – but very real – value.
　　人們普遍認(rèn)為（conventional/received wisdom — the view or belief that most people hold）舉辦一場小型婚禮以“節(jié)約金錢”。我們從這一案例中可以概括出這樣的想法忽視了許多重要的考慮因素：
　　■ 來賓會送禮。禮物價值超過該來賓的變動成本的部分等于他們所給予的（邊際）貢獻(xiàn)。
　　■ 婚禮涉及到高額的固定成本。傳統(tǒng)成本理論稱高固定成本會鼓勵產(chǎn)量大增—即會有許多來賓?，F(xiàn)代的思想則認(rèn)為很少有什么成本是真正固定的，但是這超出了本文所討論的范圍。
　　■ 從財務(wù)的觀點(diǎn)出發(fā)，存在一個邀請來賓的*3數(shù)量。
　　■ 一份長長的來賓名單意味著你不必把任何朋友或者親戚排除在外，尤其是如果不邀請會認(rèn)他們認(rèn)為受到冒犯的人。得到他們的“善意”有一個無形的—但是非常真實(shí)的—價值。
　　So we can conclude that big is beautiful (up to a point) when it comes to weddings. Who says accountants aren’t romantic? 
　　所以我們可以得出的結(jié)論是當(dāng)提到舉辦婚禮的時候，大就是美（到某一點(diǎn)為止）。誰說會計(jì)師們不浪漫來著？
　　Victor Sheahan is a cost accountant at Beru Electronics in Tralee, Ireland.
　　作者是一位在愛爾蘭Tralee的Beru Electronics工作的成本會計(jì)師。