Introduction 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. 1.0. Part B – Costing Methods 1.1. Marginal/Variable Costing Term “marginal” is extensively used and known with reference to the economics which means “extra”, whereas with economic view point the marginal cost is the cost of producing every extra unit; however the accounting terminology of “marginal” defines the cost incurred on production other than its fixed cost is the marginal cost. Simply, none of the technique is applied unless it serves the benefits and the marginal costing is used by the firms for its registered benefits. Among all its benefits the primary advantage it serves is its attempt to distinguish the fixed and variable costs, and the method only considers the related variable costs to be included in production cost and the fixed costs are thus later deducted out for ascertaining net profit. The inventory at the year-end is also valued on the bases of variable cost. With all these beneficial characteristics of the said system firms using marginal costing are clearly aware of its ... ... middle of paper ... ...pp. 490-497. Rishinek, A., 1983. Control Aspects of Standard Costing: Variance Analysis, Inflation Adjustment, The Learning Curve and their Computer Applications. Managerial Finance, 9(1), pp. 14-18. Sulaiman, M. b., Nik Ahmad, N. N. & Alwi, N., 2004. Management accounting practices in selected Asian countries: A review of the literature. Managerial Auditing Journal, 19(4), pp. 493-508. Sulaiman, M., Nik Ahmad, N. N. & Alwi, N. M., 2005. Is standard costing obsolete? Empirical evidence from Malaysia. Managerial Auditing Journal, 20(2), pp. 109-124. Talbott, J., Brack, L. & Lee, J., 1988. Variance analysis in a service business. Strategy & Leadership, 16(3), pp. 36-40. Zoysa, A. D. & Herath, S. K., 2007. Standard costing in Japanese firms: Reexamination of its significance in the new manufacturing environment. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 107(2), pp. 271-283.
[5] Colin Drury, Management and Costing Accounting, (7th edition), Chapter 17, Standard costing and variance analysis, p. 425-436
John Deere Component Works (JDCW), subdivision of John Deere and Co. was in charged specifically of the manufacturing of tractor component parts. The demand for JDCW’s products had problems due to the collapse of farmland value and commodity prices. Numerous and constant failures in JDCW’s competition for bids, alerted top management to start questioning their current costing methods. As an outcome, the analysis has to be guided to research on the current costing methods with the intention of establishing legitimacy and to help the company in adopting a more appropriate costing system.
This paper is going to identify three type of companies that use different costing systems (job costing system, process costing system, and activity-based costing allocations (ABC) ). Also, this paper is going to compare and discuss the similarities and differences you see in the companies.
Jackson, S., Sawyers, R., & Jenkins, J. (2009). Managerial Accounting (5th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers.
Since more than 40 years, Toyota Company was thinking how to develop the traditional process costing system and the production system. Some of the companies believe that the increasing of the production is a big profit, while Toyota proved the opposite. The more you increase the products out of the need of the market, the more losses you are going to gain. This kin...
Using marginal costing technique we get information about fixed costs, variable costs and contribution. Using
Absorption costing is defined as a method that includes all manufacturing costs, such as direct labor, indirect labor, variable overheads and fixed overheads. This approach also as called as full costing approach. Nowadays, a lot of companies use absorption costing method for external financial reporting purpose, matching concept is used in absorption costing. Assets like inventory affects the company’s ability to earn more profit, so in accounting field it match the expenses with the revenues that they produce is important. In addition, matching concept request company to record all the expenses that match their revenue to demonstrated company’s profitability in the specific accounting period. Under absorption costing method, fixed manufacturing overhead cost is determined by each unit of output. Moreover, when a unit of fixed manufacturing overhead is sold it will directly include in the Cost of goods sold account as an expense shown on the income statement and the rest of fixed manufacturing overhead that have not been sold would go to inventory account instead of count as expenses. Hence, the matching concept underlies the absorption costing because these expenses should be match the revenue generated from the sale of that inventory.
Chapter Overview A. Overview of Variable and Absorption Costing. At least two methods can be used in manufacturing companies to value units of product for accounting purposes—absorption costing and variable costing. These methods differ only in how they treat fixed manufacturing overhead costs. Variable Costing. Variable costing includes only variable production costs in product costs. Direct materials, direct labor and variable manufacturing overhead costs would ordinarily be included in product costs under variable costing. Fixed manufacturing overhead is not treated as a product cost under this method. Rather, fixed manufacturing overhead is treated as a period cost and is charged against income each period. Absorption Costing. Absorption costing treats all production costs as product costs, regardless of whether they are variable or fixed. Under absorption costing, a portion of fixed manufacturing overhead is allocated to each unit of product. B. Comparison of Absorption and Variable Costing. When comparing absorption costing and variable costing income statements, a number of points should be noted: Deferral of fixed manufacturing costs under absorption costing. Under absorption costing, if inventories increase then a portion of the fixed manufacturing overhead costs of the current period is deferred to future periods in the inventory account. When the units are later taken out of inventory and sold, the deferred fixed costs flow through to the income statement as part of cost of goods sold. Differences in inventories under the two methods. The ending inventory figures under the variable costing and absorption costing methods are different. Under variable costing, only the variable manufacturing costs are included in inventory. Under absorption costing, both variable and fixed manufacturing costs are included in inventory. 3.Suitability for CVP analysis. An absorption costing income statement is not well suited for providing data for CVP computations since it makes no distinction between fixed and variable costs. In contrast, the variable costing method classifies costs by behavior and is very useful in setting-up CVP computations. C. Extended Comparison of Income Data. Exhibit 7-3 in the text presents a comparison of absorption costing and variable costing income statements over three years in which production is constant but sales vary. Exhibit 7-6 in the text also presents comparative income statements over three years but holds annual sales constant and varies annual production.
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).
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.
"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
13. Romano, P.L. "Trends in Management Accounting." Management Accounting, August 1990, pp. 53-56. 14.
When studied in any reasonable depth, however, process cost is among the most difficult topics covered in cost accounting courses.” They go on to add that the contradiction of being easy to introduce as a concept and being difficult to understand when studied in depth can be traced to a students’ inability to separate relevant data from irrelevant data and the inability to organize a maze of interrelated data into usable form. As is frequently true when dealing with accounting matters, the concept may be relatively simple however the application of the concept is
Financial Accounting is designed for external use in order to provide the public with financial information, so they can make a sound decision to invest or financial support a publically traded company and it is vital that they conform to external standards set forward by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and are subjected to penalties that can lead up to a fine or jail time. Contrarily, Managerial Accounting, does not necessarily have to follow the guidelines set by the Financial Accounting Standards Board; however, the discretion of the organization is places in the hands of its management. Finally, we will evaluate how Managerial Management helps or improve operational and financial
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.