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Activity based costing theory and concept
Activity based costing theory and concept
Key features of activity based costing
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Engineering Cost Analysis
Accurately forecasting the cost of projects is vital to the survival of any business or organization. Cost estimators develop the cost information that business owners or managers, professional design team members, and construction contractors need to make budgetary and feasibility determinations. From an Owner's perspective the cost estimate may be used to determine the project scope or whether the project should proceed. According to the U.S. Department of Labor there were about 198,000 cost estimators in 1994. That of which 58% work in the construction industry, 17% employed in manufacturing industries, and the remaining 25% elsewhere. From this we could conclude that a great deal of cost estimation lies in the construction industry, where multi-million dollar contracts are formed after a thorough cost estimation.
Cost Analysis is an aspect of estimation that applies both formally and informally to the aspect of costing. Cost analysis is a formal discipline used to help appraise, or assess, the case for a project or proposal, and is an informal approach to making decisions of any kind. It is ultimately an economic tool to aid in logical decision making. In the case of construction cost estimates, the next step would be the cost analysis process. The sole purpose is to determine if the completed estimates are reasonable. Usually comparisons are made with similar projects done in the past to see if the number are within the same vicinity of each other. Though the estimates may differ from case to case, if the cost estimate is significantly higher or lower than the normal ra...
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...pplied. Cost estimation and analysis could ultimately determine major decisions in both the business and political worlds today, and play a crucial role even in our day to day lives. Through activity based costing one is able to see what areas need improvement and also whether or not a business will be successful after considering all the factors. These tools are very powerful in drawing wise conclusions from cost analysis and can be a priceless tool to have even in the field of engineering.
Works Cited
Horngren, Sundem, Stratton. Introduction to Management Accounting. 13th ed. Prentice
Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ., 2005
John D. Bledsoe, PhD. From Concept to Bid…Successful Estimating Methods, PE.
Kingston, MA: R.S. Means Company, Inc., 1992.
American Society of Professional Estimators Hand Book
GCCRG—General Construction Cost Review 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).
The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Combination of project cost forecasts with earned value management. Journal of Construction Engineering & Management, 958-966. Sitnikov, C. (2012). The 'Standard'.
Opting for coverage by a registered health spending account (RHSA) allows employees to choose the benefits that most benefit them. Health insurance covers only a certain number of services, which may not help everyone. Health spending accounts also aid employers financially as they allow them to save money. Instead of needing to pay for typical health benefits, a certain amount of money can be distributed to employees by means of an RHSA, which employees can then use as they please.
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.
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.
Cost-benefit analysis is an economic approach decision making that compares the strengths and weaknesses of each choice in order to determine which option will provide the most amount of benefits and the least amount of costs. This method is often applied to decisions that concern the environment as an attempt to determine the value of the environment before following through with decisions to preserve or utilize the environment for resources. Although many economists believe that cost-benefit analysis is an efficient way to make most decisions, some philosophers suggest that certain things, including the environment, have innumerable values, therefore, cost-benefit analysis may not be a reliable method to make decisions regarding these things.
Project managers must take cost estimates seriously if they want to complete software projects within budget constraints. After developing a good resource requirements list, project managers and their software development teams must develop several estimates of the costs for these resources. There are several different tools and techniques available for accomplishing good cost estimation.
Activity-based costing is used as a supplement of traditional cost accounting in a company to support manager in internal decision making. It focus on assigning the indirect cost to direct costs in order to get a more accurate cost on products. Activity-based costing uses several cost pools instead of one in traditional cost accounting. The system is easy to implement and it provides many benefits, it allows the company to respond to inefficiency by reallocating resources to more profitable activity from areas that absorb too many resources. It also allows the company to respond to manufacturing overhead cost and assumes a more accurate selling price on products in order to make more profits. Company that do not have internal expertise to conduct activity-based costing analysis may think to hire one or ask company that provides this kind of services for help.
First we will talk about activity based costing and we will start by giving the definition of it ; Activity based costing means refining the costing system by concentrating on individual activities as essential or primary cost object or tool . ABC system has a lot of benefits and we will discuss them now, ABC helps in understanding overhead much better and the percentage of prim cost and overhead is the same in both ABC and traditional system; but what gives advantage of ABC over traditional is by using ABC system it helps to know the detail of overhead so that it can identifies how is the activity to avoid.
Activity-Based Costing ( ABC ) Summary The business environment in the 1990s is markedly different from that of the past when conventional cost accounting procedures were established. Activity-based costing (ABC), pioneered in the late 1980s, offered a new costing approach consistent with the changed environment. However, ABC did not diffuse rapidly into the business community.
(Target costing is “a structured approach for determining the cost at which a proposed product with specified functionality and quality must be produced to generate a desired level of profitability at its anticipated selling price.”) In order to properly achieve target costing a company must complete the following steps; determine a market price point for the proposed product, calculate the target cost by subtracting the desired profit from the target price, reiterate the product design to achieve target cost, and finally revise the market price following the redesigned product and current market conditions. This mistake in the implementation of target costing led to missed opportunities to reduce costs through the redesign of product components and tooling. The missed cost reduction opportunities resulted from the hasty decision making in the design phase, Billings accepted early component designs without additional cost reducing
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
The business always develops due to investments and the correct most accurate analysis is an integral part of any initiative. Any initiative should be studied by financial analysts, correctly predicted in terms of financial investments and beneficiaries, tracked at various times, studied , changed on time, if necessary. Success of investments depends From financial analysis, it helps to protect the business from financial losses and predict cash flow and return of investment.
Estimates form the basis of tender comparison, so it should be as accurate as possible, if deficient the award settlement becomes arduous (Odusami & Onukwube, 2008). Accurate cost estimate for projects are tremendously essential to both the clients and the contractor. It provides the basis for the contractor to submit the tender and allows the parties to highlight the final cost of the project at an early stage. Essentially it is used for planning the entire project and helps during the execution phase (Akintoye and Fitzgerald, 2000). It has been pointed out that the building cost of the project usually differs from the estimated final cost and this is due to the variations (Oberlender and Trost,
Cost is known as monetary value that will contribute to the benefit or obtaining any other resources. In other words, cost is a resource that we sacrifice in order to capture profit in the business companies. As an example, we sacrifice electricity, material, labour and value of machine’s life which known as depreciation during the production of a car. Therefore, these sacrifices are known as cost. There are many different views or thoughts from different individual. From a buyer’s perspective, cost of an item or product is known as prices which are charged by the sellers that may include additional charges such as mark-up cost and production cost which make the products more expensive than the original prices