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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Techniques of Costing

Besides the methods of costing, following are the types of costing techniques which are used by management only for controlling costs and making some important managerial decisions. As a matter of fact, they are not independent methods of cost finding such as job or process costing but are basically costing techniques which can be used as an advantage with any of the methods discussed above. 
1. Marginal Costing
Marginal costing is a technique of costing in which allocation of expenditure to production is restricted to those expenses which arise as a result of production, e.g., materials, labor, direct expenses and variable overheads. Fixed overheads are excluded in cases where production varies because it may give misleading results. The technique is useful in manufacturing industries with varying levels of output.
2. Direct Costing
The practice of charging all direct costs to operations, processes or products and leaving all indirect costs to be written off against profits in the period in which they arise is termed as direct costing. The technique differs from marginal costing because some fixed costs can be considered as direct costs in appropriate circumstances.
3. Absorption or Full Costing
The practice of charging all costs both variable and fixed to operations, products or processes is termed as absorption costing.
4. Uniform Costing
A technique where standardized principles and methods of cost accounting are employed by a number of different companies and firms is termed as uniform costing. Standardization may extend to the methods of costing, accounting classification including codes, methods of defining costs and charging depreciation, methods of allocating or apportioning overheads to cost centers or cost units. The system, thus, facilitates inter- firm comparisons, establishment of realistic pricing policies, etc.
Systems of Costing
It has already been stated that there are two main methods used to determine costs. These are:
·         Job cost method • Process cost method
It is possible to ascertain the costs under each of the above methods by two different ways:
·         Historical costing
·         Standard costing
Historical Costing
Historical costing can be of the following two types in nature:
·         Post costing
·         Continuous costing
Post Costing
Post costing means ascertainment of cost after the production is completed. This is done by analyzing the financial accounts at the end of a period in such a way so as to disclose the cost of the units which have been produced.
For instance, if the cost of product A is to be calculated on this basis, one will have to wait till the materials are actually purchased and used, labor actually paid and overhead expenditure actually incurred. This system is used only for ascertaining the costs but not useful for exercising any control over costs, as one comes to know of things after they had taken place. It can serve as
guidance for future production only when conditions in future continue to be the same.
Continuous Costing
In case of this method, cost is ascertained as soon as a job is completed or even when a job is in progress. This is done usually before a job is over or product is made. In the process, actual expenditure on materials and wages and share of overheads are also estimated. Hence, the figure of cost ascertained in this case is not exact. But it has an advantage of providing cost information to the management promptly, thereby enabling it to take necessary corrective action on time. However, it neither provides any standard for judging current efficiency nor does it disclose what the cost of a job ought to have been.
Standard Costing
Standard costing is a system under which the cost of a product is determined in advance on certain pre-determined standards. With reference to the example given in post costing, the cost of product A can be calculated in advance if one is in a position to estimate in advance the material labor and overheads that should be incurred over the product. All this requires an efficient system of cost accounting. However, this system will not be useful if a vigorous system of controlling costs and standard costs are not in force. Standard costing is becoming more and more popular nowadays.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

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Ahitra Gaethon said...

I live in Madagascar ( East Africa),and life is worth living comfortably for me and my family now and really have never seen goodness shown to me this much in my life as I have been going through a problem as seriously as my son found a terrible accident last two weeks, and the doctors states that he needs to undergo a delicate surgery for him to be able to walk again and I could not pay the bills, then your surgery went to the bank to borrow and reject me saying that I have no credit card, from there i run to my father and he was not able to help, then when I was browsing through yahoo answers and i came across a loan lender Mr, Benjamin Breil Lee, offering loans at affordable interest rate I had no choice but to give it an attempt and surprisingly it was all like a dream, I got a loan of $ 110,000.00 to paid for my son surgery then get myself a comfortable business to help me going as well. I  thank God today is good and you can walk and is working and the burden is longer so much on me more and we can feed well and my family is happy today and i said to myself that I will mourn aloud in the world of the wonders of God to me through this God fearing lender  Mr Benjamin Breil Lee and I would advise anyone in genuine and serious need of loan to contact this God-fearing man on  ......  247officedept@gmail.com through .. and I want you all to pray for this man for me or Chat with him on whatsapp  +1-989-394-3740 as well.
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