A: costing information Flashcards
What are the main elements of MA?
planning
control
decision making
What are the six suggested changes the cost transformation model recommend to maintain cost competitiveness?
creating a COST CONSCIOUS culture:cost leader so cost is lower than rivals, staff motivated to reduce costs
- understanding COST DRIVERs: investigating variables, reduction
- managing the RISKs that come from a cost conscious culture:eg reduction in quality or customer satisfaction, management should manage risks
- ensuring products and services are PROFITABLE:important that every product/service makes a positive contribution to overall organisational profits
- MAXIMISING VALUE from new products: potential probability predetermined, flexible production to adapt to needs
- consider the environmental IMPACT of products-negative impacts can add costs, damage reputation and sales
RIPVCC
What is a cost object?
a product, service, centre, activity, customer or distribution channel in relation to which costs are ascertained
e.g cost units or cost centres
What are the different types of classifying costs according to their nature?
direct costs:can be traced to cost object (prime cost)
vs
indirect costs:can’t be directly traced to a single cost e.g overheads
product costs:costs only incurred if production takes place
vs
period costs:incurred due to passage of time
What is the aim of traditional absorption costing?
determine the full production cost per unit
-focus on production costs only
How is total cost calculated?
production costs + non-production costs
How is absorption rate calculated? (OAR)
total budgeted overhead costs (allocated and apportioned) divided by budgeted production volume
=total overheads/production volume
How is over-or-under absorption calculated?
(budgeted overhead rate per unit x actual units) - actual overheads incurred
difference between premeditated and actual
What are the advantages of absorption costing?
- take fixed production costs into account which are excluded from product costs usually
- follows matching/ACCRUAL concept as inv items are matched against sales value when items are sold
- fixed production overheads should be included in financial statements
- analysis of over/under absorbed overheads may be useful in identifying inefficient utilisation of production resources
- argument that in the longer term, all costs are variable and it is appropriate to try to identify overhead costs with the products or services that cause them
What are the disadvantages of absorption costing?
- apportionment and absorption of overhead costs is arbitrary
- profits vary with changes in production volume
What is marginal costing?
costing method which changes products or services with variable costs alone
-fixed costs are treated as period costs and are written off in total against contribution of the period
What is marginal cost?
extra cost arising as a result of producing one more unit or the cost saved as a result of producing one less unit
-good way to provide short term decision making activity
What are the advantages of marginal costing?
- simpler costing system as costs don’t need to be apportioned and absorbed overhead
- marginal costing reflects the behaviour of costs in relation to activity, useful in SR decision making
What are the disadvantages of marginal costing?
- when FIXED costs are HIGH relative to variable costs and when overheads are high relative to direct costs, marginal cost of production and sales is only a small proportion of total costs. not useful for LT decision making
- treatment of direct labour costs as a variable cost item is often UNREALISTIC
Profit differences in short term vs long term?
short term:depends on inv increase or reduction. Marginal and absorption systems give same profit when there is no change in inventories
long term: total reported profit will be the same whichever method is used
What are the 4 key factors of pricing decisions?
costs-ensure price is sufficient to cover the cost of producing the product or providing the service
competitors-monitor, set in line with goals
customers-value placed on product, price they are willing to pay
corporate objectives-link to strategic decisions
4Cs
What is cost-plus pricing?
adding a markup to the cost of the product or service in order to arrive at selling price
What factors can affect the mark-up pricing?
- amount customers are willing to pay
- level of competition i.e substitutes, competitors
- organisation’s objectives
- may be fixed mark up for company can make a specific return
Advantages of using full cost plus pricing?
- required profit will be made if budgeted sales volumes are achieved
- particularly useful method in CONTRACT COSTING industries such as building where a few large individual contracts can consume majority of the annual fixed costs and the fixed costs are low in relation to the variable costs
- Assuming the organisation knows its cost structures, full cost-plus is QUICK & CHEAP to employ, saving management time
- Full cost-plus pricing can be useful in JUSTIFYING selling prices to customers; if costs can be shown to have increase, this strengthens the case for an increase in the selling price
Problems with full cost plus pricing?
- Issues with SELECTION of ‘suitable’ basis on which to charge fixed costs to individual products or services
- Prices set on the basis of NORMAL VOLUME, and actual volume turns out to be considerable lower, overheads will not be fully recovered from sales and predicted profits may not be attainable
- Mark up can be very ARBITRARY and may not properly account for factors such as competition levels, how much customers are willing to pay etc
Benefits of using marginal cost pricing?
- Just as accurate as total cost-plus pricing
- Knowledge of marginal cost gives management the option of pricing below total cost when times are bad, to fill total capacity
- Particularly useful in pricing specific one-off contracts because it only account for costs which are likely to change because of the new contract
- recognises the existence of scarce or limiting resources
Problems of marginal cost pricing?
- Like any cost based pricing method, ignores EXTERNAL factors such as levels of competition, customer attitudes
- Mark-up becomes even MORE ARBITRARY than that used in full cost plus as now it must also include subjective element which allows for the selling price to cover fixed costs
How is profit mark-up calculated?
targeted return on investment in the product/budgeted level of production
What impact does modern production methods have on production costs?
Automation means:
-more indirect overheads (insurance, dep)
-less direct labour costs
-absoption rate is not volume based anymore (AC)
=> traditional methods of costing are less useful
Why are traditional methods of costing less useful?
- indirect OH is largest cost of production in one figure that lacks detail and is not useful in management
- management does not know what the components are of the largest production cost (indirect OHs) they cannot implement proper cost control
- costs are often allocated between products on the basis of direct labour hours-despite the fact that direct labour becomes smaller proportion of costs and doesn’t fairly reflect the relationship between the products and the indirect overheads
- because costs are inappropriately or inaccurately shared between products it means that the total production cost can be wrong which can lead to poor pricing and production decisions
Problems with traditional absorption costing?
cannot calculate a ‘true’ product cost that has any valid meaning
What is activity based costing?
- alternative approach to product costing
- rather than absorbing OHs on a production volume basis, it firstly allocates them to cost pools before absorbing them into units using cost drivers
- originally developed for manufacturing companies
What is a cost pool?
an activity that consumes resources and for which overhead costs are identified and allocated.
-each cost pool has a cost driver
What is a cost driver?
unit of activity that consumes resources
-factor influencing level of cost
How to identify cost drivers?
must be:
- relevant:connection between the cost driver and consumption of resources for the activity
- easy to measure:measuring the units of cost driver and identifying the products or services to which they relate needs to be a fairly easy and straightforward process
What are the 3 types of cost drivers?
TRANSACTION drivers:cost of an activity is affected by the number of times a particular action is undertaken
DURATION driver:cost of activity is not much affected by the number of times the action is taken
INTENSITY driver: efforts would be directed at determining what resources were used in the making of a product/service
What are the 5 steps to calculating an ABC?
- Group production OHs into activities, according to how they re driven
- Identify cost drivers for each activity i.e what causes these activity costs to be incurred
- Calculate a cost driver rate for each activity
- Absorb the activity costs into the product
- Calculate the full production cost and/or P&L
When is ABC appropriate?
- indirect costs are high relative to direct costs
- products or services are complex
- products or services are tailored to customer specifications
- come products or services are sold in large numbers but others are sold in small numbers
What is the difference in ABC and traditional costing dependent on?
the proportion of overhead costs that falls into each of the four categories
- if OH is primarily unit or facility level, cost will be similar
- if OH cost falls into batch level or product level, difference would be significant
What is the CIMA definition of ABC?
‘an approach to the costing and monitoring of activities which involves
-tracing resource consumption and costing final outputs.
Resources are assigned to activities, and activities to cost objects based on consumption estimates.
The latter utilise cost drivers to attach activity costs to outputs’
What are the advantages of ABC?
- more accuracy
- better cost understanding
- fairer allocation of costs
- better cost control
- can be used in complex situations
- can be applied beyond production
- can be used in service industries
What are the disadvantages of ABC?
- not always relevant
- still need arbitrary cost allocations
- need to choose appropriate drivers and activities
- complex
- expensive to operate
What are the implications of switching to ABC?
- pricing can be based on more realistic cost data:better pricing decisions
- sales strategy can be more soundly based:better at targeting
- improved decision making:research, production and sales effort can be directed to those offering the highest sales margin
- performance management can be improved:enhanced due to focus and can be used as basis of budgeting and longer term forward planning of oh costs
What is continuous costing?
- where a series of similar products or services are produced i.e costs are averaged over the number of products or services
e. g joint product costing
What is a joint product?
products produced at same time in same process before being separated for sale or further use
- main products
e. g carbonated drinks using common start before syrup, sweetener and malt added
What costs make up joint costs?
total of the raw material, labour and OH costs incurred up to the initial split-off point
What is a by-product?
incidental to main product, low saleable value
What are the 3 methods used to apportion joint costs?
- physical measurement
- market value at point of separation
- net realisable value
What is physical measurement of joint products?
costs apportioned to units of output of each product
What is market value of joint products?
costs apportioned on the basis of the market value of each joint product at the point of separation
What is the NRV of joint products?
further costs after separation are deducted from the market value before costs are apportioned
What is throughput accounting and what is it based on?
premise: managers should aim to increase throughout while simultaneously reducing inventory and operational expense
concepts: throughput, inventory and operating expenses