Activity Based Costing - Definition and Concept

In a virtual corporation environment, I believe the ABC method to be the most ideal for accurately tracking the costs involved in manufacturing, storing, delivery, and sales. For Super Bakery, Inc. the addition of multiple outsourced companies to their processes meets the criteria of products with manufacturing complexity that requires differing degrees of support services (Kimmel, Weygandt, & Kieso, 2009, p. 876). As a result, I agree with Super Bakery Inc.’s decision to implement an ABC system.

Activity-based costing can be defined as the managers allocate costs depending on the quantity of resources a product or service consumed in the manufacture of goods and services. The activity based

In a virtual corporation environment, I believe the ABC method to be the most ideal for accurately tracking the costs involved in manufacturing, storing, delivery, and sales. For Super Bakery, Inc. the addition of multiple outsourced companies to their processes meets the criteria of products with manufacturing complexity that requires differing degrees of support services (Kimmel, Weygandt, & Kieso, 2009, p. 876). As a result, I agree with Super Bakery Inc.’s decision to implement an ABC system.

Activity-based costing is a system of accounting that puts emphases on activities performed to produce products or services (Schneider, 2012). In this costing system every activity is assigned a cost (Schneider, 2012). The goal of activity-based costing is not to allot common costs to products but to measure and then price out all the resources used for activities that sustain the production and delivery of products and services to customers (Mazumder, 2007). Activity-based costing is a cost system that is useful in business because of the fact that it does account for the cost of the products, resources used to produce the product and delivery of the product.

Glaser Health Products manufactures medical items for the health care industry. Production involves machining, assembly and painting. Finished units are then packed and shipped. The financial controller is interested to introduce an activity-based costing (ABC) system to allocate (or distribute) indirect costs to products. Indirect costs, as distinct from direct costs, cannot be unambiguously linked to specific products. The controller would like to calculate product costs based on ABC for planning and control, not inventory valuation.

The first item at hand is what kind of detail does activity based costing provide that is different than traditional costing?

This paper provides a brief presentation of Activity-Based Costing methodology, how is used as well as its short comings.

In using ABC overhead costs are distributed differently across the three products, but in total they are the same, in total. However, ABC changes the information that managers receive to make effective business decisions, which will ultimately result in improved business results.

3. Under the new activity-based costing (ABC) system, compute the indirect cost allocation rates for each of the three activities:

An organization costing system is a system that helps the management with the strategy planning while the system plays an important role in providing accurate cost information about the products and customers (Curtin, 2006). UPS utilizes the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system. ABC assumes that activities cause costs and that cost objects create the demand for activities (Marx,

1. Use the Overhead Cost Activity Analysis in Exhibit 5 and other data on manufacturing

Activity-based-costing (ABC) system find activities as the drive for each cost, calculate the average cost per driver’s activity, and times budgeted activities for budgeted cost. It is worth mentioning that ABC system is not used to find problems in cost records, or predict future cost based on that.

Nowadays, we know that activity based costing system assigns overhead costs to products or services products that using a two-stage process, which focuses on activities. ABC is a relatively new and very important topic in managerial accounting. ABC allows us to find a way that we could determine the profitability of every product, profitability of every customer we serve, and the profitability of our process. Contents in brief, first that comparing potential advantages of ABC versus traditional costing methods. The

Cost Management is a combination of philosophy, an attitude and a set of techniques to create more customer value and to achieve lower cost. It goes beyond historical measurements and reporting to assess the impacts of current and proposed decisions. Activity Based Management (ABM) is one of the major disciplines of cost management that focuses on the management of activities as a way to improve customer value and profit.

ABC refers to cost attribution to cost units on the basis of benefit received from indirect activities e.g. material ordering, material handling, machine setups, quality assuring, customer support services etc. For each such activity, it is necessary to identify a cost driver that causes incurrence of cost relating to that activity. For example, hours spent on testing for a quality assurance activity may be used as application base of cost driver for this activity.