Many factors, like complexity of the
production process, frequency of operation at capacity, or the nature of
competition, must be taken into account when deciding what cost system a company
will adopt.“Given the internal and
external pressures that a company faces, one cost system may be better suited to
serve its needs than another.”In
order to determine what types of cost systems U.S. manufacturing companies use
and to examine the differences, if any, in the information generated from them,
a survey was conducted on finance and accounting professionals at 130 U.S.
manufacturing companies.
Cost
Systems and Costing Issues
A significant percentage of product costs
come from the overhead that is allocated to that product, but based on the
costing system used, the amount allocated can vary greatly due to the fact that
the different costing systems allocate overhead in very different ways.The traditional costing system uses a simple measure, such as machine
hours, to allocate overhead, ABC uses cost pools and cost drivers to assign
overhead costs based on usage, and in variable-costing systems, overhead is
treated “as a collection of costs that are incurred to support all
operations”, and therefore are not assigned to the product.In variable-costing systems, fixed costs are ignored for decision making
purposes and all that matters, in the short run, when determining tactical
production and pricing strategies are variable costs, whereas the traditional
and ABC costing systems view all costs as variable in the long run, that will be
assigned in some way to the product.Following
is a brief summary of each of the three costing systems:
Traditional cost systems:
Financial
accounting focus.
No
causal relationship between the way overhead is allocated and actual
production process.
May
overcost simple products or products that rely on high usage of allocation
base.
May
undercost complex products or products that rely on low usage of allocation
base.
Activity-based costing:
Typically
designed to meet management decision making needs.
Causal
relationships exist between overhead allocation and product usage.
Criticized
for not “being strongly linked to quality and delivery strategies”.
Variable costing:
Only
variable costs are included within product costs.
Fixed
costs are lumped together and must be covered by the products’
contribution margin.
Viewed
as being too focused on short-term decision making.
Competitive Considerations
Companies must evaluate their operating complexity, capacity considerations,
and the nature of competition, before deciding which costing system to use.Companies should also make sure to adopt a system that will capture
useful information within their decision models.For
example in relation to operation complexity, a company that produces one product
would not need to use a complex cost system since all the overhead is incurred
to support that one product, whereas, companies that produce multiple products
would have more complicated cost system decisions to make regarding the need for
variable or full cost information and which costing system to use to determine
this information.Capacity considerations
include whether or not to include fixed-cost allocations in product costs when
capacity is constrained or whether or not to include excess capacity costs
within product costs.Finally, costing
systems may influence product margins, decisions regarding whether or not to
produce a product and the quality of the products, all of which will affect the
way the company competes in both the price and nonprice aspects of competition.
The Survey
The survey results reported that out of the 130 companies surveyed, 46 use
traditional cost systems, 11 use ABC systems, 39 use both traditional and ABC
cost systems (for result reporting purposes, the ABC users were combined with
the traditional and ABC users), and 34 use variable-cost and TOC systems.
From that group 29 use traditional variable costing and 5 used TOC based
costing. The following graphic illustration conveys these statistics as well as
some additional combinations.
A summary of some of the other survey
results appears in the tables below. The answers to most of
the questions were based on a Likert seven-point scale where 1 indicates the most
negative response, 4 indicates a neutral, mid-level, response and 7 indicates
the most positive response.
Operating complexity
Across
all 130 companies, Material costs averaged 53%, labor averaged 18% &
overhead averaged 28% of product costs.
There
where no statistically significant differences in the levels of automation
or production flexibility within the three cost systems (all responses
were above the midpoint between 4 and 5).
All
cost system users believe their products and production process are a
little more complex than the midpoint.
All
responses were below a 3 on how adequate the presentation of idle capacity
is in their cost system.
Capacity Considerations
The
frequency of operating at capacity does not differ statistically among
cost system users (both traditional and variable users were slightly above
4 (midpoint) and ABC users were slightly over 4.5)
Nature of competition
62% of
the companies set their selling prices based on market prices, 14% based
on competitive bidding, 17% based on cost-plus, and 6% based on
contribution margin.
There
is a positive relationship between price competition and the emphasis for
cost reduction.
Variable
cost system users use accounting information to evaluate profitability
more often (variable over 5 vs. traditional and ABC slightly over 4.5)
All
cost systems reported about the same level of frequency of new product and
major design changes.
Perception of cost system adequacy
All
companies believed their cost systems adequately calculated product costs
(all responses were between 4 and 5).
ABC and
variable costing users found their systems more adequate at providing
information for revenue enhancement and input for cost reduction efforts
than did traditional cost users.
Few Differences
Even though the survey results indicate that “there
are few differences in the internal and external environments of ABC,
traditional and variable-cost system users”, they indicated that ABC and
variable-cost systems better serve users and that “the best system may
integrate ABC and variable-cost system attributes”.The results also found that industry pressures did not influence the cost
system used and that ABC systems were able to present cost of unused capacity
more clearly than the other systems.The
authors conclude this article by stating that some of the reasons for the lack
of statistically significant environmental differences are due to the fact that
“the survey does not measure the appropriate internal or external
dimensions”.
