Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Techniques of cost accounting
Limitation of the traditional costing system
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Techniques of cost accounting
A cost accounting system is a framework used by firms to estimate the cost of their products for profitability analysis, inventory valuation and cost control. Its goal is to advise the management on the most appropriate course of action based on the cost efficiency and capability. Cost accounting provides the detailed cost information that management needs to control current operations and plan for the future.
Costing is essential for every organization, as every manufacturing and other department has to be assigned accurate budget for proper operation (Hansen, Mowen and Guan, 2006). The costing system provides information that is useful to managers for minimizing wastage and allocating resources to different departments.
The traditional costing system is a costing system which calculates a single overhead rate and applies it to each job or department. This system has several flaws which make it outdated and ineffective in today’s business environment. One of the most important drawbacks of the traditional costing system is that it tends to over-emphasize on meeting standards such as price and efficiency without considering other important factors like quality, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction because of which the products of other companies form better alternatives and pose a tough competition to the organization. It also stunts any scope for improvement or innovation as it is too focused on sticking to the set benchmarks. This often leads to poor overall performance of the organization in the long run which in turn affects the going concern of the business.
Secondly, it utilizes a single, volume-based cost driver which leads to the distortion of the cost of products. It traces overheads to products or services usin...
... middle of paper ...
...osts and where to apply efforts to curb inflationary costs. This can be of particular value in tracking new products or customers and also solves the cross-subsidies problem linked to traditional costing system by separating overhead costs into different cost categories or cost pools. Further, it helps in cost reduction as by allocating indirect costs to products based on usage, a company can precisely identify the area in which the maximum energy and resources get consumed and the focus is then shifted to these areas. This will eventually lead to a reduction in cost as efforts will be made to purchase in bulk benefitting from economies of scale.
The ABC system may be time consuming and expensive to implement and maintain, but its large number of benefits far outbalance the disadvantages of the traditional costing system; thus, creating a need for the ABC system.
If done right, I believe that all of the costs can be allocated to each of the three products through both direct and overhead costs. The only direct costs that are being included currently are labor and manufacturing costs. I broke up overhead into overhead based off direct labor and overhead based on units sold.
As a result, systems that are put in place for ABC are updated infrequently and the model’s estimates of process, product and customer costs soon become inaccurate. In addition, the complexity of actual operations tends to get overlooked by traditional ABC models.
The pros of using ABC is the capacity to estimate the cost of services and individual products. By transferring overhead costs to individual units of products or services, ABC helps identify inefficient or non-profitable products or activities that eat into the profitability of efficient processes or highly profitable products (Nayab, 2011). This will help the company to determine whether to implement processes for improvement or outsource those processes. ABC highlights non-remunerative distribution channels allowing the management to adopt alternative marketing strategies or close down the channel for a more pro...
Cost accounting system has two types, job order costing, and process cost system. These two cost systems are very different, almost every company uses order costing or process costing. Starbucks, is a coffee shop where citizens congregate to drink there morning coffee, study, and or socialize. Starbucks is one of the oldest and largest privately held specialty coffee retailer in the United States. (Starbucks) Their passion is to discover the flavors you love and always bring it home, delivering the look, taste and aroma of the world’s best coffee and teas. Job order costing is a very easy way in order to help Starbucks managers to know how much profit their company (Starbucks) made.
Do a further analysis of production costs to improve efficiencies. If all else fails, either increase prices to the point where the contribution margin is positive, or drop the customer. 3. What is the difference between a'smart' and a Managerial Implications and Analysis Limitations Managerial Implications: What are the benefits of Moving from a traditional cost accounting system to ABC can reveal hidden costs and hidden profits on the basis of the identified activities (i.e. customers, orders, etc. ). Treating overhead costs as "fixed" can cause an unfair and highly misleading distribution of overhead costs, which are in fact variable.
Without a financial cost accounting system in place, the HCO puts itself at great risk for errors and miscommunication. A cost accounting system is a system for recording, analyzing, and allocating cost to the individual services provided to patients” (Imus 1). Likewise, a cost accounting system is comprised of many different aspects that establish a stable financial budget model and forecast.
Process costing System is an accounting expression which describes one method to determine the manufacturing costs to the units manufactured . Processing is typically used when similar units are mass produced. Also process costing system is a type of accounting process costing which is used to determine the cost of a produced inventory. Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) defines process costing as " The costing method applicable where goods or services result from a sequence of continuous or repetitive operations or processes. Costs are average over the units produced during the period, being initially charged to the operation or process "( College Accounting Coach, 2007). Process costing is more important and appropriate for all businesses producing identical products during which production is an ongoing flow. Toyota is on the of the major companies in the world that used well-known new philosophic management to produce identical products using process costing system.
Besides, an organisation can adopt a technique of activity-based costing (ABC) as an approach to support its sustainability objectives. ABC system is a technique of assigning overhead costs to products and services by identifying the cost drivers. ABC technique will first identify each activity cost that is involved in the process of production, then assign the cost to each product and service on the basis of each activity consumption in the production of each product and service (Drury, 2012, p. 253). ABC system is an effective method to account for costs of products and services. This is because ABC system allocates indirect costs based on a cause-and-effect relationship (Drury, 2012, p. 269). ABC system allocates overhead costs to cost
There are two main types of cost accounting systems, job costing and process costing. In job costing, each job is tracked separately. For example, a company that install roofs can keep track of each cost separately. They can easily track labor by tracking the total amount of human hours spent of the job and what each person was paid. Materials can easily be tracked by tracking the total costs of supplies needed to complete the job. For job costing the total costs of each job can be easily tracked. Some examples of professions that use job costing are carpenters, painters, and computer repair. In process costing, a large number of the same or very similar products are produced in large numbers - examples include
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that is designed to provide managers with cost information for strategic and other decisions that potentially affect capacity and therefore “fixed” as well as variable costs. Activity-based costing is mostly used for internal decision making and managing activities while traditional costing method is used to provide data for external financial reports. Most organization uses activity-based costing as an addition system for using traditional absorption costing as sometimes the traditional cost system misleads the product’s profitability. In a company, there are many products on sale, if one product is sold at a high price with low product margin and a product with high product margin at a low price, it may result in a loss. In addition, due to the reason that cost drivers and enterprises business may change, activity-based costing analysis also needs to be revised periodically. This amendment should be prompted to change pricing, product, customer focus and market share strategy to improve corporate profitability.
Cost Accounting: Its role and ethical considerations Introduction: Accounting is the process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information about an entity for the purpose of making decisions and informed judgements. The major areas of within the accounting are: Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting/Cost Accounting and Auditing- Public Accounting Managerial accounting is concerned with the use of economic and financial information to plan and control the activities of an entity and to support the management in planning and decision-making process. Cost accounting is the subset of managerial accounting and it helps management in determination and accumulation of product, process or service cost. Role of Cost Accounting: Increased competition and uncertain business conditions have put significant pressure on corporate management to make informed business decisions and maximize their company?s financial performance. In response to this pressure, a range of management accounting tools and techniques has emerged.
Hansen, D., Mowen, M., & Guan, L., Cost Management: Accounting & Control 6th ed., Mason, Ohio: South-Western
One of the benefits of using ABC system is product and price mix decisions; one of the
Others feel that ABC would be more widespread in industry if it were marketed better by the cost accounting profession itself [1]. As the dust has settled, ABC has turned out to be less a revolutionary technique than a useful refinement to proven systems. The costs of products and services must be accurate, or management can be misled. Decisions... ...
Accounting itself is a system that people has been using for thousands of years, the system records financial information about a person or business, businesses use it in order to be able to keep and track their financial accounts and other financial information in a safe and efficient way. (Brooks, 2012)