Activity-based costing
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Activity-based costing (ABC) is a method of allocating costs to products and services. It is generally used as a tool for planning and control. It was developed as an approach to address problems associated with traditional cost management systems, that tend to have the inability to accurately determine actual production and service costs, or provide useful information for operating decisions. With these deficiencies, managers can be exposed to making decisions based on inaccurate data. The higher exposure is for companies with multiple products or services. ABC allows managers to attribute costs to activities and products more accurately than traditional cost accounting methods. The activities responsible for the costs can be identified and passed on to users only when the product or service uses the activity. Some of the advantages ABC offers is an improved means of identifying high overhead costs per unit and finding ways to reduce the costs. Template:Unreferenced