Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Chapter 1
- Purpose of costing
- Enables the managers of a business to know the cost of the firms output.
- By being able to work out the cost of a product or service, the managers of an organisation can then use this cost to:
- Determine a selling price.
- Value inventory.
- Provide information for financial statements.
- Make management decisions.
- Used with decision making, planning for the future and the control of the expenditure.
- Cost accounting is used by:
- A manufacturing business which makes a product.
- A business that provides a service.
- What is a costing system?
- A costing system is used by an
organisation to collect information about
costs and use that information for
decision making, planning and control.
- Financial accounting and management accounting
- What is financial accounting?
- The area of accounting that includes
bookkeeping; it concentrates on providing historic
information that can be used internally and also
provided to external parties.
- The main features of financial accounting are that it:
- Records transactions that have happened already.
- Is accurate to the nearest penny.
- Is a legal requirement.
- Maintains confidentiality of information.
- What is management accounting?
- The area of accounting that includes costing; it concentrates on
providing internal information about the future in a form that is
useful; it has no externally set rules that must be followed.
- The main features of management accounting are that it:
- Uses accounting information to summarise
transactions that have happened already and
to make estimates for the future.
- Looks in detail at the costs and the sales income
of products and services.
- Looks forward to show what is likely to happen in the future.
- May use estimates.
- Provides management with reports that are of use in running the business/organisation.
- For internal use.
- Maintains confidentiality of information.
- Sources of data for costing.
- Costs can be seen as:
- Historic costs
- Current costs
- Future costs
- Elements of cost:
- Materials
- Raw materials, resale items, service items.
- Labour
- Wages, salaries, public sector wages.
- Expenses
- Running costs of the business.
- Classification of costs by function and nature.
- Production costs
- Direct
- Direct costs are costs that can
be identified directly with each unit
of output.
- Direct materials:
- The cost of the materials used to make the items produced.
- Direct labour:
- The cost of paying the employees who carry out the production.
- Direct expenses:
- Indirect
- Indirect costs cannot be
identified directly with specific
units of output.
- Indirect materials:
- The cost of materials that cannot be directly linked to specific items produced.
- Indirect labour
- The cost of employing people in the factory who do not actualy make the products.
- Indirect expenses:
- The other costs of running the factory.
- Non-production costs:
- Administration
- Selling/distribution
- Finance