Cost finding

A major factor in business planning is the cost of producing the company’s products. Cost finding is the process by which the company obtains estimates of the costs of producing a product, providing a service, performing a function, or operating a department. Some of these estimates are historical (how much did it cost?), while others are predictive (what will it cost?).

The basic principle in cost finding is that the cost assigned to any object—an activity or a product—should represent all the costs that the object causes. The most fully developed methods of cost finding are used to estimate the costs that have been incurred in a factory to manufacture specific products. The simplest of these methods is known as process costing. In this method, the accountant first accumulates the costs of each production operation or process for a specified time frame. This sum is then restated as an average by dividing the total costs of production by the total output in the period. Process costing can be used whenever the output of individual processes is reasonably uniform or homogeneous, as in cement manufacturing, flour milling, and other relatively continuous production processes.

A second method, job-order costing, is used when individual production centres or departments work on a variety of products rather than just one during a typical time period. Two categories of factory cost are recognized under this method: prime costs and factory overhead costs. Prime costs are those that can be traced directly to a specific batch, or job lot, of products. These are the direct labour and direct materials costs of production. Overhead costs, on the other hand, are those that can be traced only to departmental operations or to the factory as a whole and not to individual job orders. The salary of a departmental supervisor is an example of an overhead cost.

Direct materials and labour costs are recorded on the job order cost sheets for each job. Although not traceable to individual jobs, overhead costs are generally assigned to them by means of overhead rates—i.e., the ratio of total overhead cost to total production volume for a given time period. A separate overhead rate is usually calculated for each production department, and, if the operations of a department are varied, it is often subdivided into a set of more homogeneous cost centres, each with its own overhead rate. Separate overhead rates are sometimes used even for individual processing machines within a department if the operating costs of machines differ widely in such factors as power consumption, maintenance cost, and depreciation.

Because output within a cost centre is not homogeneous, production volume must be measured by something other than the number of units of product; common measures include the number of machine hours and direct labour hours. Once the overhead rate has been determined, a provision for overhead cost can be entered on each job order cost sheet on the basis of the number of direct labour hours or machine hours used on that job. For example, if the overhead rate is $3 per machine hour and Job No. 7128 used 600 machine hours, then the overhead cost for this machine would be $1,800.

Many production costs are incurred by departments that do not actually produce goods or provide salable services. Instead, they provide services or support such as equipment maintenance, quality control, cleaning, or the production of power to run the machinery. Estimates of these costs are included in the estimated overhead costs of the production departments by a process known as allocation—that is, estimated service department costs are allocated among the production departments in proportion to the amount of service or support each receives. The departmental overhead rates then include provisions for these allocated costs.

A third method of cost finding, activity-based costing, is based on the fact that many costs are driven by factors other than product volume. The first task is to identify the activities that drive costs. The next step is to estimate the costs that are driven by each activity and to state them as averages per unit of activity. Management can use these averages to guide its efforts to reduce costs. In addition, if management wants an estimate of the cost of a specific product, the accountant can estimate how many of the activity units are associated with that product and multiply those numbers by the average costs per activity unit.

For example, suppose that costs driven by the number of machine hours average $12 per machine hour, costs driven by the number of production batches average $100 a batch, and the costs of keeping a product in the line average $100 a year for each kind of material or component part used. Keeping in the line a product that is assembled from six component parts thus incurs costs of 6 × $100 = $600 a year, irrespective of volume and even if the product is not made at all during the period. If the plant manufactures 10,000 of these units in a year, the unit cost of product maintenance is $600/10,000 = $.06 a unit. If this product is manufactured in batches of 1,000 units, then batch-driven costs average $100/1,000 = $.10 a unit. And, if a batch requires 15 machine hours, hour-driven costs average 15 × $12/1,000 = $.18 a unit. At the 10,000-unit volume, then, the cost of this product is $.06 + $.10 + $.18 = $.34 a unit plus the cost of materials.

Product cost finding under activity-based costing is almost always a process of estimating costs before production takes place. The method of process costing and job-order costing can be used either in preparing estimates before the fact or in assigning costs to products as production proceeds. Even when job-order costing is used to tally the costs actually incurred on individual jobs, the overhead rates are usually predetermined—that is, they represent the average planned overhead cost at some production volume. The main reason for this is that actual overhead cost averages depend on the total volume and efficiency of operations and not on any one job alone. The relevance of job-order cost information will be impaired if these external fluctuations are allowed to change the amount of overhead cost assigned to a particular job.

Many systems go even farther than this. Estimates of the average costs of each type of material, each operation, and each product are prepared routinely and identified as standard costs. These are then readily available whenever estimates are needed and can also serve as an important element in the company’s performance-reporting system, as described below.

Similar methods of cost finding can be used to determine or estimate the cost of providing services rather than physical goods. Most advertising agencies and consulting firms, for example, maintain some form of job cost records, either as a basis for billing their clients or as a means of estimating the profitability of individual jobs or accounts.

The methods of cost finding described in the preceding paragraphs are known as full, or absorption, costing methods, in that the overhead rates are intended to include provisions for all manufacturing costs. Both process and job-order costing methods can also be adapted to variable costing in which only variable manufacturing costs are included in product cost. Variable costs rise or fall in proportion to the quantity of output. Total fixed costs, in contrast, are the same at all volume levels within the normal range.

Unit cost under variable costing represents the average variable cost of making the product. Compared to the average full cost, the average variable cost is more useful when making short-term managerial decisions. In deciding whether to manufacture goods in large lots, for example, management needs to estimate the cost of carrying larger amounts of finished goods in inventory. More variable costs will have to be incurred to build the inventory to a higher level; fixed manufacturing costs presumably will be unaffected.

Furthermore, when a management decision changes the company’s fixed costs, the change is unlikely to be proportional to the change in volume; therefore, average fixed cost is seldom a valid basis for estimating the cost effects of such decisions. Variable costing eliminates the temptation to use average fixed cost in estimating changes in the total fixed cost. When variable costing is used, supplemental rates for fixed overhead production costs must be provided to measure the costs to be assigned to end-of-year inventories. This practice is followed because generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the United States and in most other countries require that inventories be measured at full product cost for external financial reporting.