...Costing Methods Paper Erica Rice ACC/561 18 February 2013 Edward Hastings Costing Methods Paper What strategies did the management of Super Bakery, Inc. use? Super Bakery’s challenges are to control cost by reducing the overhead for serving their customers in different parts of the country, and by doing this they can use the ABC method; Activity-Based Costing System to enhance control over overhead costs and under ABC, the company can trace many overhead costs directly to activities by allowing some indirect costs to be identified as direct costs like the customer’s order cost for every individual customer that seems to be the same amount. The managers can become more aware of their responsibility to control the activities that generate those costs. The second reason that Super Bakery’s went with ABC was because of trying to control cost in the business part of the company like, manufacturing, sales, warehousing, and shipping. By taking control of the product cost this should contribute to settling selling prices that can help them achieve desired product success. With a more precise cost data the managers could decide on whether to buy or make a product part or piece, and whether to remove a product. ABC helps the managers to minimize the amount of overhead that is payable to their product. If the overhead is payable based upon the amount of direct labor used, then the managers can minimize the amount of overhead payable to their product by minimizing the amount of...
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...C H A P T E R F I V E INTRODUCTION TO COST MANAGEMENT Activity-Based Costing and Management After studying this chapter, you should be able to . . . 1. Explain the strategic role of activity-based costing 2. Describe activity-based costing (ABC), the steps in developing an ABC system, and the benefits and limitations of an ABC system 3. Determine product costs under both the volume-based method and the activity-based method and contrast the two 4. Explain activity-based management (ABM) 5. Describe how ABC/M is used in manufacturing companies, service companies, and governmental organizations 6. Use an activity-based approach to analyze customer profitability 7. Identify key factors for successful ABC/M implementation PART I Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. Benjamin Franklin This chapter has a lot to do with implementing the spirit of Benjamin Franklin’s observation—in cost management terms—that it really does matter how accurately you calculate a cost. Why? Having accurate costs is important for a variety of reasons: a company might find that it has a difficult time determining which of its products is most profitable. Alternatively, it finds its sales increasing but profits declining and cannot understand why. Perhaps the company keeps losing competitive bids for products and services and does not understand why. In many cases, accurate cost information is the answer to these questions. Accurate cost information provides a competitive...
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...expensive machine than another product—but since the amount of direct labor and materials might be the same, additional cost for use of the machine is not being recognized when the same broad 'on-cost' percentage is added to all products. Consequently, when multiple products share common costs, there is a danger of one product subsidizing another. ABC is based on George Staubus' Activity Costing and Input-Output Accounting.[4] The concepts of ABC were developed in the manufacturing sector of the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, the Consortium for Advanced Management-International, now known simply as CAM-I, provided a formative role for studying and formalizing the principles that have become more formally known as Activity-Based Costing.[5] Robin Cooper and Robert S. Kaplan, proponents of the Balanced Scorecard, brought notice to these concepts in a number of articles published in Harvard Business Review beginning in 1988. Cooper and Kaplan described ABC as an approach to solve the problems of traditional cost management systems. These traditional costing systems are often unable to determine accurately the actual costs of production and of the costs of related services. Consequently managers were making decisions based on inaccurate data especially where there are multiple products. Instead of using broad arbitrary percentages to allocate costs, ABC seeks to identify cause and effect relationships to...
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...Activity- Based Costing & Process Costing Job Order Costing: 1. Many different jobs are worked on during each period, with each job having different production requirements. 2. Costs are accumulated by individual job. 3. Job cost sheet is the key document controlling the accumulation of costs by a job. 4. Unit costs are computed by job on the job cost sheet (Similarities between Job Order and Process Costing System, nd). Process Costing: 1. A single product is produced either on continuous basis or for long periods. All units of product are identical. 2. Costs are accumulated by departments. 3. The department production report is the key document showing the accumulation and disposition of costs. 4. Unit costs are computed by department on the department production report (Similarities between Job Order and Process Costing System, nd). The job order cost system is most suitable when the products differ in types of material and work performed. Thus, each product is made according to the customer's specifications and the price quoted is closely tied to estimated cost. Examples of types of companies which might use job order costing are printing companies and shipbuilding firms (Fletcher, nd). The process cost system is commonly used where products are manufactured under mass production methods or by continuous processing. Industries using process costs are paper, steel, chemicals, and textiles. Assembly-type processes such as washing machines and electrical appliances...
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...When are companies likely to use a job costing system or process costing system? Describe the specific characteristics of each system and provide several examples (i.e. at least two) from companies in your community for each system (i.e. at least four companies should be described). Companies use both job costing system and process costing systems. It is important to understand the differences in the two systems. According to Blocher (2013), a job costing system is a product costing system in which it collects and assigns certain costs to a specific job. A process costing system differs in that it collects product or service costs by process or department and then assigns them to a large number of similar or nearly identical products. According to Goss (2003), the easiest way for costing is to average all the indirect costs and allocate them. This would be an example of a process costing system. Some local companies are Dixie Brick and Coca-Cola. Dixie Brick is a company that develops brick blocks for local construction companies. Since the company produces a mass amount of bricks it is best to use the process costing system. It would not be beneficial to assign a different price to differing bricks. Coca-Cola is also a company that produces nearly similar products and sells the products for the same price. Different ingredients are used in the different flavors of products. The products are still similar enough that it would not make sense to assign different prices for...
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...Job Costing Job costing is a technique used where jobs are performed to meet the customer’s standards. It usually involves accounting for indirect and direct costs. For example, In a situation where you surveyed a week in business operations in what had looked like to be a busy week, but then the next day a bookkeeper shows a report that says the business lost money. One report says that integrators as a cohort are improving at estimating the materials side of job costing, but as jobs change and become more difficult, they tend to get the time and labor estimates wrong. They call it “scope-creep,” which the company adds time to projects like safety training, that wasn’t on the original time to be budgeted. Spencer Bullins says that labor projections are the most difficult part of job costing because after estimating labor costs coming in they have to protect them from things that change during jobs. Commercial integrators tend to use software for job costing, but most of the time it’s programs like Excel and/or Quickbooks. These programs are too generic to generate labor values and establishing workflows. For instance, people that use these programs can do job costing effectively. For example, for the past twenty years, Ray Bailey has been using a system that uses Microsoft Excel that attaches nine labor categories to a single part. The categories range from opening, packing, installing, and cleaning products. Also, if the company has a twenty four floor building they also...
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...Costing Methods ACC 561 July 15, 2014 Costing Methods Absorption and variable costing are two methods an organization such as Polk Company can employ when accounting for costs and generating income statements. The differences between the two methods are focused on the types of costs absorbed or assigned to the product, specifically fixed and variable overhead expenses as well as when fixed overhead manufacturing costs are allocated. In absorption costing all costs are charged to the product including direct materials, direct labor, variable manufacturing overhead, and fixed manufacturing overheard (Kimmel, Weygandt, Kieso, 2011). In variable costing direct materials, direct labor, and variable manufacturing overhead is charged to the product, and fixed overhead expenses are considered period costs (Kimmel et al. 2011). In addition, full absorption costing is considered a generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) and used for external reporting purposes whereas variable costing is used for internal reporting (Stevenson, Barnes, & Stevenson, 1993). The Polk Company benefits more from using the absorption method because the overhead expense is allocated on the basis of 80,300 units sold. The variable costing method calculates the fixed overheard costs based on the 94,500 units produced for the period. In this case the absorption method provides management with a more accurate assessment of the fishing lure profitability. Under the absorption costing method, the product...
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...that uses the German-based costing system. It was founded in 1937 and is the biggest German automaker in the world, as well as the second biggest automaker in the world. The annual financial statements of Volkswagen AG have been prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB – German Commercial Code). The main function of costing systems is help companies determine the cost of a product related to the revenue it generates. Two of the more common costing systems used in business are traditional costing and activity-based costing. Traditional costing assigns manufacturing overhead based on the volume of a cost driver, such as the amount of direct labor hours needed to produce an item. A cost driver is a factor that causes cost to incur, such as machine hours, direct labor hours and direct material hours. Activity-based costing allocates the costs of manufacturing a product according to the activities needed to produce the item. Activity-based costing provides a more accurate view of product cost, but companies typically use it as a supplemental costing system. The allocation bases used in activity-based costing differ from those used in traditional costing. Activity-based costing determines every activity associated with producing an item and allocates a cost to the activity. The cost assigned to the activity is then assigned to products that require the activity for production. On the other hand, flexible margin costing or GPK is a time-tested...
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...Table of content I. Introduction 4 II. Three systems to measure product costs 4 1. Variable costing: 4 2. Absorption costing: 5 3. Activity-based costing approach 7 III. Standard costing 9 1. Use of iterative operations for standard costing 9 2. Defining the standards 9 3. Purposes and advantages of standard costing and variance analysis 11 4. Limits of standard costing 12 IV. Conclusion 13 Reference list 14 Glossary 15 Appendix 1 16 Appendix 2 19 Appendix 3 21 Appendix 4 23 Appendix 5 25 I. Introduction Management accounting has three major purposes: record profits, identify inefficient activities and solve problems. There are two main approaches: the first one is variable costing which considers costs in function of their behaviour (variable or fixed) and the second is about full costing which considers the cost object (direct or indirect). There are two methods for it: the full absorption costing and the activity based costing, appeared more recently. From these systems, managers also will be able to take strategic decisions like pricing, discontinuing a division, subcontracting at short and long term and evaluate individual performances. In the first part of the report, I will present the three approaches and explain their limits as well as their advantages. Then, in the second part, I will present and evaluate the standard costing approach, trying to determine if it fits for all companies regardless their sizes and types. ...
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...44. Problems with Overhead Application: Decision Focus – Bergan Brewery uses the latest in modern brewing technology to produce a prizewinning beer. In both 2011 and 2012, Bergan produced and sold 100,000 cases of beer and had no raw materials, work in process, or finished goods inventory at the beginning or end of either year. At the end of 2011, the company installed machines to perform some of the repetitive tasks previously performed with direct labor. At the beginning of 2012, Bergan’s bookkeeper estimated that net income would increase from $ 530,000 in 2011 to $ 706,000 in 2012: | 2011 Actual | 2012 Estimated | Beer sales (100,000 cases) | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | Less: Cost of goods sold | | | Direct material | 150,000 | 150,000 | Direct labor | 125,000 | 25,000 | Applied overhead* | 95,000 | 19,000 | Gross profit | $630,000 | $806,000 | Less: Selling and administrative costs | 100,000 | 100,000 | Net income | $530,000 | $706,000 | * For 2012, overhead was applied at the 2011 rate of $ 9.50 per direct labor hour for an estimated 2,000 hours of direct labor. A total of 10,000 direct labor hours were worked in 2011. Bergan’s bookkeeper estimates that 5,000 machine hours will be worked in 2012. However, when actual overhead was used to calculate net income at the end of the year, net income decreased from $ 530,000 in 2011 to $ 435,000 in 2012: | 2011 Actual | 2012 Actual | Beer sales (100,000 cases) | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | Less:...
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...cz Abstract Paper analyses the specifics of the application of Activity-Based Costing method in hospital management. Primary objective of the paper is to outline the methodology of the ABC application in hospitals. First part of the paper analyzes the ways of ABC implementation in published foreign studies. Second part describes the individual steps in ABC application and discusses the differences in the application procedures between the manufacturing and hospital organization. Key words: Healthcare Management, Cost Management, Activity-based costing, Introduction In the last decade, many non-profit and hospital organizations started to face difficulties and challenges in balancing limited resources and costs to provide their demand for services. Due to the introduction of modern medical techniques and medicines and consequent increase of consumed costs, many hospitals are under pressure to adopt more advanced cost management techniques usually utilized only in profit organization sector. Hospital managers frequently seek the advanced techniques, for better understanding of relations between the cost and provided services. One of the key factors of effective company management is ability of accurate estimation of the cost of products. Product costing is an essential economic tool used to quantify the cost of individual interventions carried out. The need for an accurate method of costing in hospital organizations is frequently emphasized by many authors. Gujral et al...
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...Activity-based Costing Activity-based costing, is a system that follows a two-stage procedure to assign overhead costs to products. It identifies activities in a company and assigns the cost of each activity resource to all products and services according to the actual consumption by each. As revealed in the article, this costing method had both pros and cons. The article favored the advantages of the ABC method although the satisfaction scores were below the average for all tools used. For those companies that disfavored ABC method, the most common complain was that it took too much money and time using this method, and the method might not capture the complexity of their operations. In fact, ABC method is not production-specified. For production costs, standard costing was still “kill of the hill” with a usage rate of 42% according to the article. However, it is inaccurate to say that ABC method is increasingly being abandoned, only four out of 141 organizations previously used ABC but no longer use it according to the survey. In addition, the survey revealed that around sixteen percent companies considered ABC but chose not to implement it. The main concerns of managers of those companies regarding which cost-measurement system to choose were that they were not sure if it was a better way to allocate cost, if it accurately reflected how resources were used, if the information was timely, and if updating the system was difficult. Having said about the disadvantages and...
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...Chapter 8 Activity-based costing Problems with conventional product costing systems General features of conventional product costing systems Direct material and direct labour costs are traced to products Manufacturing overhead costs are allocated to products using a predetermined overhead rate Manufacturing overhead rate is calculated using some measure of production volume Non-manufacturing costs are not assigned to products Problems with conventional product costing systems Failure to adapt to the changing business environment Increasing levels of non-volume-driven manufacturing overhead costs Increasing proportion of non-manufacturing costs Causes of changes in costs Changing product structures and increased product diversity 5 Indicators of problems with a product costing system Product costing systems are likely to result in inaccurate product costs when … Proportion of direct labour costs decreases Proportion of manufacturing overhead costs increases Proportion of manufacturing overhead costs, not related directly to production volume, increases Non-manufacturing costs that are product-related become substantial Product diversity increases Problems with costing in service businesses Service firms...
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...ratio of adopting ABC | | |system |use of data of different |How do firms consider ABC system | |Activity based costing in |Earlier experience of ABC system |survey |CIMA research on ABC system | |manufacturing: |ABC implementation case studies |Journals |Detail case study of two | |two case studies |comparison & conventional costing |articles |companies | | |system |Different case studies | | |Year 1998 | | | | |Page 137-147 | | | | |2. "Activity-Based Costing." |The structure of ABC and its pit |Study of research magazine & |Potential pitfalls of activity | |Encyclopedia of Small Business. Ed. |falls |article |based costing. | |Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier | | | | |Hillstrom. Gale Group...
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...Robert S. Kaplan and Robin Cooper was designed the activity based costing (ABC) method in 1988. It was felt that there was a need for more accurate and up-to-date information and a more proactive approach to planning and managing the costs. ABC is a process to identify the costs of all activities and allocating, applying, assigning or tracing costs to products. Activity based costing is a costing technique, tool, system, mechanism or approach. It may be used in addition to the current traditional system or used in place of it. This will enable the new system to be applied consistently so that the opportunity to revert to old ways is limited. Activity based costing is aims to cost the products independent of output volume and to apply overheads on the basis of causes and effect. Besides that, it is also aim to trace all the costs to products. The underlying assumption of ABC is that a product causes activities, activities cause costs and therefore activity is related to product costs. In other words, since activities consume assigned resources and products consume activities, the costs of products are the cost of resources. Its main focus is on the relationship between activity, cost driver, cost, cost pool and cost object. Traditional cost accounting is inadequate so that become activity based costing more relevant. Activity based costing gained support because of the limitations of traditional cost accounting. It is focuses on departments, cost centres or divisions and not...
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