Part 1- Conceptual Framework
Cost Accounting
Cost accounting, as a tool of management, provides management with detailed records of the costs relating to products, operations or functions. Cost accounting refers to the process of determining and accumulating the cost of some particular product or activity. It also covers classification, analysis and interpretation of costs. The cost so determined and accumulated may be the estimated future costs for planning purposes, or actual (historical) costs for evaluating performance. The Institute of Cost and Management Accountant (ICMA), London, defined cost accounting as “the process of accounting for cost from the point at which expenditure incurred or committed to the establishment of its
…show more content…
a) Performance measurement: This measurement can be done by comparing current costs with those who were expected - or standard costs budgeted cost - to the degree of knowing which of them have been controlled. Deviations of expected with the current - variances - can be identified, evaluated and discussed by managers.
b) Cost of goods and services: In manufacturing companies, the costs of goods must be measured to determine the cost of items transferred from work in process inventory to finished products. To meet the demands for information, a cost system should measure all the costs of manufacturing process and allocate a portion of those costs to each unit of output. The cost to obtain, maintain and manage the manufacturing plant or building should be added to the cost of material and productive work that requires each unit. The first are called indirect costs and the two last are called direct costs.
c) Profit analysis. Information in costs is essential to analyze the profits obtained from a product or product line. The information on the cost of a product enables managers to assess the contribution margin - the difference between
The traditional costing method is a distribution of manufacturing overhead costs to the actual products manufactured. By using this
Into which of the three elements of manufacturing cost would each of the following be classified? (Direct Labor, Direct Materials, and Manufactured Overhead)
In order for a company to succeed and be successful, it is very important for the company to understand the difference between profit and cost of goods. There are costing tools that can help a business figure out what the cost of product is during the manufacturing process. These tools are beneficial for a company to figure out how much profit can be made. These tools take the cost of manufacturing the unit and subtract it from the sale price of the product. Having this information, the profit per unit, is very beneficial for a company to know which products they should produce more heavily, or which ones to eliminate. I want to discuss two costing methods that are beneficial to a
Production costs are costs associated with manufacturing goods or providing services and are classified as direct materials, direct labor, and overhead.
-Maintained 100% on-hand accountability of 6,668 principal end item held on the MAL and 18 consolidated memorandum receipts valued in excess of $68 million.
Through the case study, I learnt that a proper Cost Accounting System is very important in a company. Without the accurate system, a company is unable to maximize the profit from the product sold. The product price might be charged too high (over-priced) or too low (under-priced). All these will
A manufacturer may employ a job order cost system for some of its products and a process cost system for others.
Cost accounting is concerned with cost and therefore is necessary to understand the meaning of term cost in a proper perspective.
A direct cost can be traced to a product or service which includes: Direct labor- which is the cost of the labor that’s directly connected to a product or services. Direct labor is sometimes called touch labor, since direct labor workers typically touch the product while it is being made.( Ray H. Garrison, Eric W. Noreen and Peter C. Brewer p 39-40) An example of direct labor is an assembly line worker. Labor cost that cannot be physically traced to the creation of products, or that can be traced only at great cost and inconvenience, are considered to be indirect labot.( Ray H. Garrison, Eric W. Noreen and Peter C. Brewer p 40) Direct material are those materials that become an integral part of the finished product and whose cost can be traced to the finished product.( Ray H. Garrison, Eric W. Noreen and Peter C. Brewer p39-40) Manufacturing overhead is the third element so manufacturing cost, it includes all costs of manufacturing except direct materials and direct labor. Manufacturing overhead includes items such as indirect materials; indirect labor; maintenance and repairs on production equipment; and heat and light, property taxes, depreciation, and insurance on manufacturing facilities. Only cost associated with operating the factory are consider to be manufacturing overhead cost. A company also incurs other costs associated with its selling administive functions, but these costs are not included as part of manufacturing overhead. Only those
Manufacturing costing systems refer to the accounting techniques used to recognise and record the inputs and outputs values in the manufacturing process (K. Langfield-Smith, Thorne, & Hilton, 2009). Job-order costing is about to obtain all costs involved in the basis of individual products. It needs to obtain the exact costs involved in the manufacturing process of a particular unit. This needs to obtain costs incurred for every unit such as materials costs, labour, and manufacturing overhead.
Nonvalue-added activities do not add value to the goods or services. 1–4. Differential costs are important for managerial decision making, but other cost data can provide management with additional important information. For example, inventory values and costs of goods sold are important for income tax and financial reporting purposes as well as for most bonus and cost-plus contracting purposes. Costs for performance evaluation are not necessarily differential costs. Companies try to recover all costs, hence some estimate of total costs is needed. (This could be an opportunity to discuss short-run and long-run costs with students, noting that in the long run, all costs must be covered.)
The proper measurement of direct labor costs is essential when manufacturing a product. The management and accounting departments of a company need to know the actual costs of manufacturing a good so that effective business decisions can be made.
When properly implemented, the cost accounting function can have a pervasive influence in the modern corporation. Unfortunately, it is not always properly implemented because management often is not completely aware of all the uses to which the cost accounting function can be put. This chapter describes the main categories of activities in which this function can become involved, and can be used as a guide by the controller in creating a well-rounded niche for the cost accountant.
Cost accounting is a type of accounting process that aims to capture a company's costs of production by assessing the input costs of each step of production as well as fixed costs such as depreciation of capital equipment. Cost accounting will first measure and record these costs individually, then compare input results to output or actual results to aid company management in measuring financial performance (Cost Accounting, n.d.).
Management accounting was first known as cost accounting. This origin was reflected in the earlier title for practitioners of cost or works accountants (Wilson and Chua, 1988). Accounting historians have long endorsed the view that cost accounting is a product of the industrial revolution (Johnson, 1981). For example (Wilson and Chua, 1993) claimed that cost accounting was practiced by the mechanized, multi process, cotton textile factories that appeared in England and United States around 1800. This point of view was consistent with Garner (1947) who pointed out that cost accounting had emerged only after eighteenth century as a