Advantages of Activity Based Costing

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.

Activity-based costing (ABC) methodology is an instrument designed to provide accountants and managers with valuable costing information that will allow them to make sound strategic decisions. It is used as a secondary methodology rather than a replacement for the company’s primarily costing system. The ABC methodology identifies activities in an organization and for each activity it assigns a cost. The cost reflects the actual resource consumption by each activity that has been identified.

As previously mentioned, the use of activity-based costing gives Kemps an advantage when competing for customers in an ever more competitive and growing market. However, the ability to succinctly distinguish how many small changes, when taken together, can have a large impact on cost savings (and therefore profit), is necessary in order to convince customers who may not be familiar with the many benefits of ABC. Mainly, management would want to demonstrate how the cost savings that they enjoy are ultimately passed on to their customers, perhaps by showing some of the improvements that have been made to their own company as a result of implementation, specifically focusing on advancements that would have a direct impact on the customer’s business.

Activity-based costing is more accurate because it takes important factors into account before assigning a cost to a product. It's also more thorough and considers nonmanufacturing expenses as well, such as administrative and managerial costs. The ABC method is accurate, however it’s expensive to

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,

The ABC method is a good fit for Super Bakery. The job order cost system works for SB because it assigns cost to each account identifying services or products that are profitable. Therefore, access to the company’s profits for each individual job and the profitability of the outsourced activities allows managers to make educated decisions about the company’s financial needs. By using financial reports managers

This paper will discuss and analyze the concepts of Activity- Based Costing (ABC) in the manufacturing industry. Specifically, the document will focus on General Motors (GM), and the innovation of one of their manufacturing facilities who used ABC to predict energy usage in the manufacturing of automobiles. The study yielded a successful ABC predictive energy model which provided a structure for competitive advantage for the corporation.

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

Activity-based management, activity-based costing and continuous improvement, all these help in the improvement of the efficiency in manufacturing, better control of overhead costs and the accurate costing of products. With this in mind, We disagree with the advice that Chuck Davis, the firm’s controller, gave Leonard Bryner. The traditional way of costing produce average costs that severely overstated or understated. Without the accurate costs, the firm would not be able to price properly their products and that would be damaging to the firm. With activity-based costing and management, all costs are accounted for with the help activity-drivers and overhead costs are decreased. In turn, the costs that the firm has for their products are more accurate and pricing is much easier.

C. T. Horngren, A. Bhimani, S. M. Datar, G. Foster (2005), 'Activity-Based Costing', Management and Cost Accounting (Prentice Hall Europe), 345-363

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.