engleski

The impact of costing systems on product profitability evaluation

The basic purpose of costing systems is to determine the cost of a product or service by assigning manufacturing costs to products or services that company produces or provides. Costing system consist of different accounting methods used in order to define the cost per unit. Accounting methods used in costing system enable the evaluation of products as a result from the manufacturing process. It is important to point out that different costing systems differently affect the product evaluation. The choice of costing system was based on the type of the production process. Therefore, job order costing was used in job order production, while process costing was applied in process or mass production. Today, these two costing systems are considered as traditional costing systems which are no longer suitable to use in modern operating conditions. Business conditions are changing rapidly becoming more and more complex. Manufacturing processes in modern production companies are almost fully automated and computerized. The process of manufacturing automation and computerization causes significant change in manufacturing cost structure. The most important cost element in modern manufacturing cost structure becomes indirect manufacturing costs (manufacturing overheads). This change in manufacturing cost structure found traditional costing systems inappropriate for product evaluation. In order to avoid the inaccuracy of traditional costing systems in product evaluation, the new costing system, based on activities, has been developed. This costing system is known as Activity based costing.

costing systems; cost allocation; product profitability; ABC

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