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Cost Characteristics

Types of Costs

 

Absorption Costs also known as Full cost - absorbs its share of fixed production costs overhead

 

Variable Costs -costs that change in magnitude with production or sales levels

 

Fix Costs – Costs do not change as production or sales move up or down.

 

Engineered Costs -  Cost engineered into the product i.e. material, manufacturing overhead

 

Discretionary Costs – Costs that need not be incurred every accounting period at the level that mangers have come to expect i.e. Machine maintenance, administrative support, R&D.

 

Break-Even Point

          Equation Method

                   Sales = Fixed costs + Variable costs + Profits

                   Break-even Sales = Fixed cost + Variable costs

         

Contribution Margin Method – focus on amount of profit earned by each unit of product given that fixed costs will be incurred anyway.

                   Contribution margin = Sales revenue – Variable costs

                   Break-even Point – Fixed costs / Contribution margin

         

Contribution Margin Ratio Method (or Profit /Volume Ratio)

                   Ratio = Contribution margin per unit / Sales revenue

                   Break-even Point = Fixed costs / Contribution margin ratio

 

 

Contribution Costs = Sales – variable (marginal) costs incurred in generating sales revenue ) x Units

 

Contribution = Selling Price – (variable cost / units)

 

Contribution per Unit (the limiting factor)

Mtrl/resource

Unit measure to produce

Sales

(Units)

Contribution

Cost

(Variable Cost)

Contribution

Units

(Contribution cost/ sales)

Contribution per Material Cost

(Material resource X Contribution unit)

Rank

1 = High

2

3 = Low

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allocating Costs to Jobs and Processes

 

Direct – Each Service department emptied out to production departments and added to the overhead rates based on suitable activity base

 

Step – Descending order allocate services to all department till only the products exist.

 

Activity Based Costing (ABC) – Focus on belief that activities rather than products cause costs to be incurred and products consume activities and thereby cost.

 

Net Sales Value – Money generated by each product

 

Physical measure – divided based on physical amount

 

Equal shares - evenly across all products.

 

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