Feb 2013
Lesson 2.1: Financial Management: Cost Estimation
Budget Terms
Each of these terms has an official definition in budget execution.
TERM
DEFINITION
Budget Authority
"Budget Authority" is the authority granted by appropriations law to enter into obligations that will result in immediate or future outlays.
Commitment
A "commitment" is the administrative reservation of funds, usually by the local comptroller, in anticipation of a future obligation. A commitment is the response to a request for a spending action. It ensures that funds are available in the amount requested, in the correct fiscal year, and in the proper appropriation.
Obligation
An "obligation" is the legal reservation of funds to make a future payment of money.
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1. Analogy: Subjectively compares the new system with one or more existing similar system for which there is accurate cost and technical data.
Strengths
●
●
●
Quick
Inexpensive
Easy to change
Weaknesses
●
●
Subjective
Not as precise
2. Parametric: Sometimes known as the statistical method, this technique:
● Generates an estimate based on system performance or design characteristics.
● Uses a database of elements from similar systems.
● Differs from Analogy in that:
● Uses multiple systems.
● Makes statistical inferences about the cost estimating relationships (CER).
Strengths
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●
●
Uses cost estimating relationships Easy to do "what-if drills"
Inexpensive
Weaknesses
●
●
Moderately subjective
Precision only as good as the data base
3. Engineering: "Bottom-up" method of cost analysis that is the most detailed of all the techniques and the most costly to implement. Each WBS element must be costed to build the cost estimate for the entire program.
Strengths
●
●
Very accurate in later stages of System
Development &
Demonstration
Limited subjectivity
Weaknesses
●
●
●
Very expensive
Very time-consuming
Difficult to do "what-if drills"
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Feb 2013
4. Actual Costs: Extrapolation from actual costs that were contracted for or actually incurred on that same system during an earlier period.
Strengths
●
●
Little subjectivity
Very accurate
Weaknesses
●
●
Little applicability
Budget may
While we are performing our analysis on different aspects of the company, we look at the three main types of cost. When we remain devoted to improving our costs, and the faults related, we show our same devotion to our consumers. This is portrayed by the quality of products we put on the shelves. Prevention costs, appraisal costs and Failure costs are areas
There are also various cost assumptions used by businesses, with every entity choosing a respective method in accordance to their inventories, based on the effects they
3. Under the new activity-based costing (ABC) system, compute the indirect cost allocation rates for each of the three activities:
To estimate product costs, an analysis of the primary cost drivers for each step of the manufacturing process was performed. Table 1 details each activity, along with the corresponding base, total quantity, total cost, and activity rate:
3. What type of costing system are they currently using and what are the current cost allocation bases used for indirect costs?
•Three-point estimating – much like for time management the approach uses pessimistic, most likely and optimistic costs to develop the estimate. This method’s accuracy is dependent on known costs, expert judgment, and historical
57. What is cost? 58. What is cost function? 59.
We will examine the given data from the case and compare the unit costs from the company’s current costing system (traditional costing) and from activity-based costing. We will also highlight other qualitative data in consideration with the numerical factors that may result to a significant change on our recommendation.
Define and give examples of cost classifications used in making decisions: differential costs, opportunity costs, and sunk costs.
The bottom-up approach involves estimating the cost of individual activities or work packages and then summarizing or rolling up the individual estimates to get a project total. This approach typically results in greater accuracy in the detailed tasks, but there is a risk that some tasks may be overlooked.
To compute the estimated cost of technology components of the project, we take the following into consideration;
4. During which month of the project are the highest and lowest costs expected to
The method that provides the best opportunity for cost data collection was noted as the Bills of Quantity method. This method appears to have advantages over the other methods but yet even with the Bills of Quantity method some potential pitfalls exist.
The first cost system of this part of this essay is activity-based costing (ABC). Cooper and Kaplan (1988) implemented ABC for taking care of issues of Traditional costing frameworks.
Procedure costing is utilized when there is large scale manufacture of comparative items, where the expenses connected with individual units of yield can 't be separated from one another. As such, the expense of every item delivered is thought to be the same as the expense of each other item. Under this idea, expenses are amassed over a settled time of time, abridged, and after that designated to the greater part of the units delivered amid that time of time on a predictable premise. At the point when items are rather being produced on an individual premise, occupation costing is utilized to amass costs and appoint the expenses to items. At the point when a creation procedure contains a few mass assembling and some modified components, then a crossover costing framework is utilized.