Incremental vs. Comprehensive Analysis The incremental analysis focuses on relevant amounts where the comprehensive analysis requires a vast amount of information. The incremental analysis examines the differences between alternatives where the comprehensive examines the whole picture. Being based on relevancy, the incremental analysis ignores irrelevant amounts while still considering qualitative factors. In comparison, the incremental analysis is considered more about the economic factors than the comprehensive analysis, but is just as effective in decision making.

The comprehensive analysis gathers information from all relevant aspects of the business, including past and present amounts, to evaluate the complete picture. This requires a lot of time to gather all the information and more time to evaluate the information. It is based on reasoning and requires the ability to predict future consequences of decisions being made (Farrell). The comprehensive analysis is primarily used to evaluate the position of the business as a whole compared to industry and competitive information.

On the other hand, the...

It can be used to evaluate for deficiencies in decisions made from the comprehensive analysis. It does not focus on future consequences. It only looks at the relevancy of alternatives now. Any amount considered as irrelevant is ignored.
The incremental analysis examines decision components of revenue (or benefit) differences, cost differences, and cost savings differences between the alternatives (Tanner). It only focuses on the relevant differences in the revenues and costs. This would include opportunity costs (profits or expense increases or decreases). Qualitative factors, such as product quality, employee morale, perception, or customer service, are also considered for effects of each one.

Incremental analysis is useful for special order decisions, limited resource, make or buy product decisions, and sell, scrap, or rebuild decisions. It focuses on the information needed for the current decision that needs to be made. In this way, the incremental analysis is more economical to use than the comprehensive analysis. It saves a…