Cost accounting is defined by the Institute of Management Accountants as "a systematic set of procedures for recording and reporting measurements of the cost of manufacturing goods and performing services in the aggregate and in detail. It includes methods for recognizing, allocating, aggregating and reporting such costs and comparing them with standard costs". Often considered a subset of managerial accounting, its end goal is to advise the management on how to optimize business practices and processes based on cost efficiency and capability. Cost accounting provides the detailed cost information that management needs to control current operations and plan for the future.
Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this case, money is the input that is gone in order to acquire the thing. This acquisition cost may be the sum of the cost of production as incurred by the original producer, and further costs of transaction as incurred by the acquirer over and above the price paid to the producer. Usually, the price also includes a mark-up for profit over the cost of production.
Cost-plus pricing is a pricing strategy by which the selling price of a product is determined by adding a specific fixed percentage to the product's unit cost. Essentially, the markup percentage is a method of generating a particular desired rate of return. An alternative pricing method is value-based pricing.
Cost of goods sold (COGS) is the carrying value of goods sold during a particular period.
In accountancy, depreciation is a term that refers to two aspects of the same concept: first, an actual reduction in the fair value of an asset, such as the decrease in value of factory equipment each year as it is used and wears, and second, the allocation in accounting statements of the original cost of the assets to periods in which the assets are used.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that identifies activities in an organization and assigns the cost of each activity to all products and services according to the actual consumption by each. Therefore, this model assigns more indirect costs (overhead) into direct costs compared to conventional costing.
In budgeting, and management accounting in general, a variance is the difference between a budgeted, planned, or standard cost and the actual amount incurred/sold. Variances can be computed for both costs and revenues.
Process costing is an accounting methodology that traces and accumulates direct costs, and allocates indirect costs of a manufacturing process. Costs are assigned to products, usually in a large batch, which might include an entire month's production. Eventually, costs have to be allocated to individual units of product. It assigns average costs to each unit, and is the opposite extreme of Job costing which attempts to measure individual costs of production of each unit. Process costing is usually a significant chapter. It is a method of assigning costs to units of production in companies producing large quantities of homogeneous products.
Construction accounting is a form of project accounting applied to construction projects. See also production accounting. Construction accounting is a vitally necessary form of accounting, especially when multiple contracts come into play. The construction field uses many terms not used in other forms of accounting, such as "draw" and progress billing. Construction accounting may also need to account for vehicles and equipment, which may or may not be owned by the company as a fixed asset. Construction accounting requires invoicing and vendor payment, more or less as to the amount of business done.
A cost estimate is the approximation of the cost of a program, project, or operation. The cost estimate is the product of the cost estimating process. The cost estimate has a single total value and may have identifiable component values.
In business, overhead or overhead expense refers to an ongoing expense of operating a business. Overheads are the expenditure which cannot be conveniently traced to or identified with any particular revenue unit, unlike operating expenses such as raw material and labor. Therefore, overheads cannot be immediately associated with the products or services being offered, thus do not directly generate profits. However, overheads are still vital to business operations as they provide critical support for the business to carry out profit making activities. For example, overhead costs such as the rent for a factory allows workers to manufacture products which can then be sold for a profit. Such expenses are incurred for output generally and not for particular work order; e.g., wages paid to watch and ward staff, heating and lighting expenses of factory, etc. Overheads are also a very important cost element along with direct materials and direct labor.
Total absorption costing (TAC) is a method of Accounting cost which entails the full cost of manufacturing or providing a service. TAC includes not just the costs of materials and labour, but also of all manufacturing overheads. The cost of each cost center can be direct or indirect. The direct cost can be easily identified with individual cost centers. Whereas indirect cost cannot be easily identified with the cost center. The distribution of overhead among the departments is called apportionment.
Job costing is accounting which tracks the costs and revenues by "job" and enables standardized reporting of profitability by job. For an accounting system to support job costing, it must allow job numbers to be assigned to individual items of expenses and revenues. A job can be defined to be a specific project done for one customer, or a single unit of product manufactured, or a batch of units of the same type that are produced together.
The value of work done (VOWD) is a project management technique for measuring and estimating the project cost at a point in time. It is mainly used in project environments of the Petroleum industry and is defined as the value of goods and services progressed, regardless of whether or not they have been paid for or received. The primary purpose of determining VOWD is to get an accurate and comprehensive as possible estimate of cost for a project at a point in time. This is used in overall project management including reporting and cost control.
Direct labor cost is a part of wage-bill or payroll that can be specifically and consistently assigned to or associated with the manufacture of a product, a particular work order, or provision of a service. Also, we can say it is the cost of the work done by those workers who actually make the product on the production line.
The following is a glossary of terms relating to construction cost estimating.
Standard cost accounting is a traditional cost accounting method introduced in the 1920s, as an alternative for the traditional cost accounting method based on historical costs.
Jerome Lee Nicholson was an American accountant, industrial consultant, author and educator at the New York University and Columbia University, known as pioneer in cost accounting. He is considered in the United States to be the "father of cost accounting."
In business economics cost breakdown analysis is a method of cost analysis, which itemizes the cost of a certain product or service into its various components, the so-called cost drivers. The cost breakdown analysis is a popular cost reduction strategy and a viable opportunity for businesses.
The UVA method is an accounting and decision-making tool, based on calculating the cost of sales. Unlike management accounting, which calculates product margins, the UVA method calculates the result generated by each sale. The UVA method relies on a very detailed analysis of all costs related to products, customers, orders, and deliveries. It introduces the notion of a single measure unit, which applies to all the operations in the company. The method relies on an equivalent-based approach.
Fundamentals of Cost Accounting. William N. Lanen, Shannon W. Anderson, Michael W. Maher. McGraw-Hill.
