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Absorption/Full Costing, Variable/Marginal Costing, and Activity Based Accounting

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Introduction
The contained paper has been prepared with objectives of elaborating over the three different costing methods namely, Absorption/Full Costing, Variable/Marginal Costing, and Activity Based accounting. The first segment of the report seeks to define and illustrate the costing methods based on the personal understanding of the writer gained through the class room and the academic readings. Part two of the report takes a form of short essay, written critically to evaluate the application of standard costing and variance analysis to any size of business, and concludes with a verdict that whether or not standard costing and variance analysis is applicable to each business with consideration of its costs and benefits of the system. …show more content…

However, despite its valuable benefits, the prime critique of the method informs its applicability of the method successful only in short run and is not deemed fruitful in the longer time frame. Although the system efforts to differentiate the fixed and variable costs, which however is not easy, hence any mistake in cost differentiating may lead to wrong decision making. With regard to valuation of inventory, since the inventory is valued at variable price in case of production damage the recovery value from insurance is unfavorable (Reinstein & Bayou, 1997).
1.2. Full/Absorption Costing
As the name says “absorption” this method of costing implies that all the manufacturing related costs are allocation to the production and is absorbed over the total production for the period. The per unit absorption cost is calculated based on the normal estimated production, which in the above example is estimated at 300 units. Hence, the per-unit fixed production o/h cost is 2000/300 = $6.667. Later, the inventory is valued at the cost including fixed production over heads, and in case of production variance from the estimated production level the cost absorption is calculated that whether the cost has been absorbed overly or is under absorbed comparing to the standard

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