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The value and importance of job order costing
The value and importance of job order costing
Job order and process costing systems - quiz
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Abstract
Variable costing and absorption costing produce different net operating income figures and the differences can be quite large
Job-order costing and process costing are two common methods for determining unit product costs Ordinarily, variable costing and absorption costing produce different net operating income figures, and the difference can be quite large. absorption costing is the most common approach to product costing throughout the world. absorption costing—the most widely used method of determining product costs—can artificially increase profits when managers choose to increase the quantity of units produced. Numerous organizations have incorporated activity-based costing in their method of calculating production. Activity-based
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Traditional cost accounting (TCA) method refers the absorption costing where all manufacturing cost, both fixed and variable are assigned to a unit of production (Garrison, Noreen, & Brewer, 2015). Under traditional cost accounting units of production include the distribution of manufacturing overhead cost to the products assembled and Indirect costs assigned to the Items manufactured on the basis of quantity produced such as the number of units manufactured and the direct labor hours or production machine hours that are used to make the product. A basic traditional costing example would be a company that makes widgets makes 1 million of them per year. To do it, it could require five full-time employees, each working 2,000 hours, plus another three supporters, also working 2,000 hours each. In the process of making widgets, it spends $1 million. Its overhead rate would be the result of dividing the $1 million in cost by the 10,000 hours of direct labor. This works out to $100 per hour (Lender, …show more content…
For this reason, traditional based cost systems misrepresent the cost of the product. In other words, it is assumed that each time a unit of product is manufactured it incurs a cost. The method is not totally useless and can be used on certain direct costs. However, for activities that are not performed directly on the product, the method is flawed at best. This is due to the fact that most companies today are made up of more complicated cost drivers and activities. The traditional cost accounting system end up with cost of goods sold on the bases of absorption cost and includes production costs that can only be used in external reporting. “Fundamentally, traditional costing systems try to assign cost directly to products, rather than to activities first and then from the activities to product units. The typical cost report gives information on what is spent, but not why it is spent” (Marx, 2009). As stated before job-order costing is one of the traditional systems and is used when many different jobs or products are worked on each period. Some examples of business that use traditional cost accounting include greeting card companies, commercial aircraft production, major construction companies, Medical service industry, law firms and retail companies. Process cost accounting is also a traditional accounting system that is used when mass production of similar unit production cost cannot be
[2] Stout, David E., Propri, Joseph M., Implementing Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing at a Medium-Sized Electronics Company, Management Accounting Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3, Spring 2011.
Roybal, H., Baxendale, S.J., and Gupta, M., (1999), “Using Activity-Based Costing and Theory of Constraints to Guide
An organization costing system is a system that helps the management with the strategy planning while the system plays an important role in providing accurate cost information about the products and customers (Curtin, 2006). UPS utilizes the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system. ABC assumes that activities cause costs and that cost objects create the demand for activities (Marx, 2009). The key to cost allocation under ABC is to identify the activities that are performed to provide a particular service and then aggregate the costs of the activities (Gapenski, 2012). This is a marked departure from the practice of sharing overheads costs equally or overheads becoming part of the overall profit-loss estimate instead of component product pricing (Nayab, 2011).
Conventional Activity Based Costing (CABC) was first introduced by Robert Kaplan and Robin Cooper in the late 1980s through a series of papers published in the Harvard Business Review. The method aimed to correct deficiencies with the standard cost systems; the systems which attempted to cram all of a company’s costs into three broad categories – labor, materials, and overhead (Kaplan, 2007, p. 15). Such a system lacked the resiliency and versatile data management that was necessary to adapt to market demand changes that came with the twentieth century. While businesses improved to meet the market demands with services such as increased product variety, smaller order sizes, direct delivery, and specialized technical support, their traditional cost systems could not support efficient resource allocation for the rising costs to provide all those services. CABC sought to fix these issues. Cooper and Kaplan’s ABC system improved efficiency by assigning costs down to the product/orders level, enabling managers to better recognize where money was being wasted and where it needed to be invested. The basic model looked like this:
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.
It was the year 1987 when the Gartner Group popularized the form of full cost accounting named Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)(author, Gartner Total Cost of Ownership). Originally TCO was mainly used in the IT business sector. This changed in the 1980’s when it became clear to many organizations that there is a distinct difference between purchase price and full costs of a products ownership. This brings us towards the main strength of conducting a TCO analysis, besides taking the purchase costs into account, which consist of the amount a money an organization pays for the required service, product or capital outlay. It also considers 1. Acquisition costs; these can consist of sourcing, administration, freight, and taxes. 2. Usage costs, which consists of the costs associated with converting the given product or service into a finished product. And finally 3. End of life cycle costs; the costs or profits incurred when disposing of a product. TCO can be seen as a form of full cost accounting; it systematically collects and presents all the data for each proposed alternative.
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.
Managerial accounting has changed over the years. Managerial accounting focuses on more than the financial aspect. We will be looking at how managerial accounting affects the business world today. Business also look to the economy, federal taxes, and the financial market so it can make the best decisions for their business.
The contained paper has been prepared with objectives of elaborating over the three different costing methods namely, Absorption/Full Costing, Variable/Marginal Costing, and Activity Based accounting. The first segment of the report seeks to define and illustrate the costing methods based on the personal understanding of the writer gained through the class room and the academic readings. Part two of the report takes a form of short essay, written critically to evaluate the application of standard costing and variance analysis to any size of business, and concludes with a verdict that whether or not standard costing and variance analysis is applicable to each business with consideration of its costs and benefits of the system.
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.
Hansen, D., Mowen, M., & Guan, L., Cost Management: Accounting & Control 6th ed., Mason, Ohio: South-Western
"Both methods estimate overhead costs related to production and then assign these costs to products based on a cost-driver rate. The differences are in the accuracy and complexity of the two methods" (1) , Now we will discuss why ABC can result in more reliable products costs than conventional labor based product costing system . In recent years, the nature of industrial production has fundamentally altered; we will discuss their characteristics. First we have machine production and capital intensive, Now machines are the main tool and at the heart of production; labors maintain machines and supervise them, and machines are the ones that dictates the pace and rate of production. The second characteristic is high level of overheads relative to direct cost; in modern businesses they tend to use overheads in different ways for example: some products need engineering time and some products require machine time so that products will use overheads differently. The third characteristic is highly competitive international market, transportation including fast freight and relatively cheap; one of the advantages is the use of internet ensures that customers can easily and quickly reach and find products and also cheaply, this environment is highly competitive so companies need to know accurately their range of prices in order to use this information to gain competitive advantage over other
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... ...
The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data
A job order cost system is one in which costs are accumulated by individual products. Furthermore, a job-order costing system is utilized for assigning manufacturing costs to an individual product or batches of products. Generally, the job order costing system is used only when the products manufactured are adequately different from each other. In contrast, when products are identical or nearly identical, the process-costing system will likely be used (Averkamp, 2016). In addition, a job-order costing system is generally used by companies that manufacture a number of contrasting products.