Key Points
Cost accounting - Cost Accounting may be defined as “Accounting for costs classification and analysis of expenditure as will enable the total cost of any particular unit of production to be ascertained with reasonable degree of accuracy and at the same time to disclose exactly how such total cost is constituted”.
There are various types of cost accounting, such as:
- Standard costing
- Activity based costing
- Marginal costing
- Service costing
- Job costing
- Process costing
- Contract costing
Service costing - Service costing, also known as operating costing, is a cost estimation tool used by businesses that offer services. For example, service costing is used by transportation firms, electrical providers, hospitals, movie theatres, hotels, schools, and universities to determine cost per unit.
Process costing - Process costing is a costing approach used mostly in manufacturing, where units are mass-produced in a continuous manner using one or more processes. Manufacturing erasers, chemicals, paper industry, and processed foods are all examples of this.
Contract costing - Contract costing is a type of particular order costing in which work is performed according to the customer's specified requirements and each order is of a long duration. Contractors who perform construction and engineering work such as roads, dams, buildings, canals, railway lines, bridges, a city or town's drainage system, hospital, schools, or colleges buildings or private structures, shipbuilding, and so on use contract costing.
Batch costing - Batch costing is a type of special order costing in which each batch is handled as an independent cost unit, with expenses accrued and calculated individually for each batch. Each batch is made up of a number of similar units. Batch costing is a costing approach used by businesses that produce a similar product or component in large quantities.
Additional Information
Standard costing - The method of calculating the cost of a manufacturing process is known as standard costing. It's a type of cost accounting that allows a company, for example, to budget for miscellaneous expenses such as direct material, direct labour, and overhead for the following year. These companies will also be able to correlate the standard price to the real price.
Activity based costing - A costing approach known as activity-based costing (ABC) assigns overhead and indirect expenses to associated products and services. Unlike traditional costing techniques, this accounting costing method acknowledges the link between expenses, overhead activities, and produced items, attributing indirect costs to products with less arbitrariness.
Marginal costing - The cost of one more unit of output is known as marginal cost. The notion is used to determine the optimum production quantity for a corporation, where producing further units costs the least amount of money. It's computed by multiplying the change in manufacturing expenses by the change in production quantity.
Job costing - Job costing is a way of accounting used to keep track of the costs of different projects and activities. It entails examining direct and indirect expenses, which are often divided into three categories: labour, materials, and overhead.