Introduction and background

Cost accounting is the process of accumulating, measuring, analyzing, interpreting and reporting of the information related to the cost. This type of process is useful and relevant for all internal and external stakeholders of the business entity. In the management accounting, the term cost accounting includes the works of establishing budget and actual cost of operations, processes, departments, analysis of the variances and profitability or social use of the funds. In the external stakeholders we include all those who have invested money in the company, such as banks, financial houses, investors and others. Internal stakeholders are those people who work within the premise of the company, such as business or company directors, division heads and managers.

Cost accounting has long been used to help managers understand the costs of running a business. Modern cost accounting originated during the industrial revolution, when the complexities of running a large scale business led to the development of systems for recording and tracking costs to help business owners and managers make decisions.
In the early industrial age, most of the costs incurred by a business were what modern accountants call "variable costs" because they varied directly with the amount of production. Money was spent on labor, raw materials, power to run a factory, etc. in direct proportion to production. Managers could simply total the variable costs for a product and use this as a rough guide for decision-making processes.
Some costs tend to remain the same even during busy periods, unlike variable costs, which rise and fall with volume of work. Over time, the importance of these "fixed costs" has become more important to managers. Examples of fixed costs include the depreciation of plant and equipment, and the cost of departments such as maintenance, tooling,