Why Did Abc Fail at the Bank of China?

It is a remarkable reality that the traditional costing systems use a solitary, volume-based cost driver. This is the motivation behind why the traditional product costing system misshapes the expense of items or products. By and large, this kind of costing system appoints the overhead expenses to items on the premise of their relative use of direct work. Thus, traditional cost systems frequently report incorrect product costs. The issue is in the basic technique of the traditional costing systems. They stick to the supposition that items reason cost. Every time a unit of product is produced, it is expected that cost be brought about.

Overhead costs are not in proportion to the production output because of the method they are using. This leads to inaccurate pricing and costing decisions. An Activity Based Costing System would help find the real relationship between the products produced and overhead.

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.

The account issue addressed in this case study was whether to continue with the existing costing method for each product line or implement a activity-based costing method. The ABC method allows for an organization to allocate direct and indirect costs to products and obtain an accurate level of costs and profit for each unit produced, thus allowing the company to improve their overall operational effectiveness. ABC does differ from the existing costing method described in the case as the old method does not account for volume related overhead costs which must be allocated to the specific ODD and TGC products.

Glaser Health Products of Ranier Falls, Georgia needs assistance in evaluating and classifying costs in order to implement an activity-based costing system. As stated in the case, these costs will be used for planning and control decisions rather than inventory valuation. The activity-based costing system will provide better allocation of Glaser’s overhead costs rather than a system to look at the cost drivers or the activities that their overhead costs comprise. Glaser’s general structure of an activity-based costing model should consist of cost

2. LS, Chapter 2, Review Question 2.7 When analysing cost behaviour the ‘level of activity’ refers to the level of work performed in the organisation. The activity generally causes the cost and, for this reason, the level of activity is often referred to as the level of cost driver. Activity can be expressed in many different ways, including units produced, number of machine hours, number of direct labour hours, number of transactions, kilometres driven, kilowatts used, pages printed, number of set-ups,

This memo highlights segmented reporting and the variable approach to preparing income statements. Segmental reporting is necessary since there is a need to understand the cost data for each section. Proper cost allocation is critical to preparing the income statements, while it is also easier to identify the costs that are common and not attributable to any specific segment. Typically, the management analyzes the cost behavior by making the assumption that the total costs change occur because of change in level of a single activity (Slideshare, n.d.). The variable costing

Research and describe best practice models relevant to the business sector, especially as it relates to this case study.

Narong, D. K. (2009). Activity-Based Costing and Management Solutions to Traditional Shortcomings of Cost Accounting. Cost Engineering, 51(8), 11-22.

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,

philosophy of talent management and development is driven by seven guiding principles that create a mindset that is pervasive across the bank’s executive ranks. They are:

With this system each customer’s order cost the same amount to complete causing orders with high profit limits to subsidized orders with low profit limits making it difficult for Super Bakery to know the true cost for an order. The company changed to the activity-based costing (ABC) system allowing the managers the ability to recognize the cost and profit margins for each sale. The ABC system associates the costs with the activities allowing managers the opportunity to access a system that allocates overhead costs that uses multiple bases. Costs can be traced back to each individual’s account regardless of the product provider letting managers know which products are profitable and which ones are not. The traditional costing system allocates cost to departments or jobs instead of overhead cost pools. The traditional costing system makes it difficult to know which activity or product is making a profit.

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

Under the new cost system, two broad sources of costs were identified: manufacturing and SM&A. All costs within these categories were reclassified as either volume driven or order driven. Hence, four cost pools were set up.