preview

The Four Components Of Inventory Carrying Cost

Good Essays

1.Inventory carrying cost is generally seen as the cost associated with goods, materials and components at rest. There are various components that make up carrying cost. The four components of inventory carrying costs are;
• Capital cost also known as opportunity cost or interest.
• Storage space cost; these costs depict the cost of the warehouse and utilities as well as the cost of handling the materials to and from the warehouse
Inventory Service cost; these costs are typically cost of insurance and taxes
• Inventory Risk cost; these costs are related to the risk the products faces in the warehouse such as a decrease in the dollar value of the product caused from obsolescence, breakages, spoilage etc.
Capital cost is very important as it constitutes the largest cost of inventory carrying cost. Hence, a firm needs to adopt the capital budgeting process to determine whether it should proceed with the investment in inventory or not. Therefore, the hurdle rate should be used to determine whether the value generated from the investment has exceeded a minimum rate. This applies to all the new investment in the firm. That is, there is an assurance of no reduction of earnings per capital. In addition, Capital costs explain all the external funding, including equity and debt financing, that is invested in inventory hence the name opportunity loss or interest. This means that the Weighted Average Cost of Capital will be used in making a policy decision regarding the investment of

Get Access