An activity cost driver is an action that triggers higher or lower variable costs for a business. Sometimes referred to as a causal factor, it is associated with the managerial accounting concept of activity-based costing (ABC). Keeping tabs on activity cost drivers is important as it can help boost efficiency and company profits.
Key Takeaways
An activity cost driver is an action that triggers higher or lower variable costs for a business.
Activity cost drivers give a more accurate determination of the true cost of business activity by considering the indirect expenses.
Keeping tabs on these fluctuating costs can help boost efficiency and company profits.
Activity cost drivers are used in activity-based accounting (ABC).
How Activity Cost Drivers Work
A cost driver affects the cost of specific business activities. In ABC, an activity cost driver influences the costs of labor, maintenance, or other variable costs. Cost drivers are essential in ABC, a branch of managerial accounting that allocates the indirect costs, or overheads, of an activity.
There may be multiple cost drivers associated with an activity. For example, direct labor hours are a driver of most activities in product manufacturing. If the expenditure for labor is high, this will increase the cost of producing all company products or services. If the cost of warehousing is high, this will also increase the expenses incurred for product manufacturing or providing services.
Keeping tabs on cost drivers makes it easier to determine the actual cost of production and make more accurate financial projections.
More technical cost drivers are machine hours, the number of engineering change orders, the number of customer contacts, the number of product returns, the machine setups required for production, or the number of inspections. If a business owner can identify the cost drivers, the business owner can more accurately estimate the true cost of production for the business.
Cost Allocation
When a factory machine requires periodic maintenance, the cost of the maintenance is allocated to the products produced by the machine. For example, the cost driver selected is machinery hours. After every 1,000 machine hours, there is a maintenance expense of $500. Therefore, every machine hour results in a 50-cent (500 / 1,000) maintenance cost allocated to the product being manufactured based on the cost driver of machine hours.
Distribution of Overhead Costs
Using cost drivers simplifies the allocation of manufacturing overhead. The correct allocation of manufacturing overhead is important to determine the true cost of a product. Internal management uses the cost of a product to determine the prices of the products they produce. For this reason, the selection of accurate cost drivers has a direct impact on the profitability and operations of an entity.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a more accurate way of allocating both direct and indirect costs. ABC calculates the true cost of each product by identifying the amount of resources consumed by a business activity, such as electricity or man hours.
Special Considerations: The Subjectivity of Cost Drivers
Management selects cost drivers as the basis for manufacturing overhead allocation. There are no industry standards stipulating or mandating cost driver selection. Company management selects cost drivers based on the variables of the expenses incurred during production.
What Are Some Examples of Activity Cost Drivers?
Activity cost drivers include direct labor hours, the cost of warehousing, order frequency, and product returns.
What Do You Mean by Cost Driver?
Cost drivers are the activities that trigger business expenses.
What Is the Activity-Based Costing Method?
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a method of assigning overhead and indirect costs—such as salaries and utilities—to products and services. Doing this helps to get a better grasp on costs, allowing companies to form a more appropriate pricing strategy and churn out higher profits.
The Bottom Line
Examining activity cost drivers helps companies to reduce unnecessary expenses and get to grips with how much an order really costs. The importance of accessing this knowledge shouldn’t be understated. The ultimate goal is to maximize profits; a key way to accomplish this is by being aware of all expenses and keeping them in check.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that assigns overhead and indirect costs to related products and services. This accounting method of costing recognizes the relationship between costs, overhead activities, and manufactured products, assigning indirect costs to products less arbitrarily than traditional costing methods. However, some indirect costs, such as management and office staff salaries, are difficult to assign to a product.
Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
How Activity-Based Costing (ABC) Works
Activity-based costing (ABC) is mostly used in the manufacturing industry since it enhances the reliability of cost data, hence producing nearly true costs and better classifying the costs incurred by the company during its production process.
Key Takeaways
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a method of assigning overhead and indirect costs—such as salaries and utilities—to products and services.
The ABC system of cost accounting is based on activities, which are considered any event, unit of work, or task with a specific goal.
An activity is a cost driver, such as purchase orders or machine setups.
The cost driver rate, which is the cost pool total divided by cost driver, is used to calculate the amount of overhead and indirect costs related to a particular activity.
ABC is used to get a better grasp on costs, allowing companies to form a more appropriate pricing strategy.
This costing system is used in target costing, product costing, product line profitability analysis, customer profitability analysis, and service pricing. Activity-based costing is used to get a better grasp on costs, allowing companies to form a more appropriate pricing strategy.
The formula for activity-based costing is the cost pool total divided by cost driver, which yields the cost driver rate. The cost driver rate is used in activity-based costing to calculate the amount of overhead and indirect costs related to a particular activity.
The ABC calculation is as follows:
Identify all the activities required to create the product.
Divide the activities into cost pools, which includes all the individual costs related to an activity—such as manufacturing. Calculate the total overhead of each cost pool.
Assign each cost pool activity cost drivers, such as hours or units.
Calculate the cost driver rate by dividing the total overhead in each cost pool by the total cost drivers.
Divide the total overhead of each cost pool by the total cost drivers to get the cost driver rate.
Multiply the cost driver rate by the number of cost drivers.
As an activity-based costing example, consider Company ABC that has a $50,000 per year electricity bill. The number of labor hours has a direct impact on the electric bill. For the year, there were 2,500 labor hours worked, which in this example is the cost driver. Calculating the cost driver rate is done by dividing the $50,000 a year electric bill by the 2,500 hours, yielding a cost driver rate of $20. For Product XYZ, the company uses electricity for 10 hours. The overhead costs for the product are $200, or $20 times 10.
Activity-based costing benefits the costing process by expanding the number of cost pools that can be used to analyze overhead costs and by making indirect costs traceable to certain activities.
Requirements for Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
The ABC system of cost accounting is based on activities, which are any events, units of work, or tasks with a specific goal, such as setting up machines for production, designing products, distributing finished goods, or operating machines. Activities consume overhead resources and are considered cost objects.
Under the ABC system, an activity can also be considered as any transaction or event that is a cost driver. A cost driver, also known as an activity driver, is used to refer to an allocation base. Examples of cost drivers include machine setups, maintenance requests, consumed power, purchase orders, quality inspections, or production orders.
There are two categories of activity measures: transaction drivers, which involves counting how many times an activity occurs, and duration drivers, which measure how long an activity takes to complete.
Unlike traditional cost measurement systems that depend on volume count, such as machine hours and/or direct labor hours to allocate indirect or overhead costs to products, the ABC system classifies five broad levels of activity that are, to a certain extent, unrelated to how many units are produced. These levels include batch-level activity, unit-level activity, customer-level activity, organization-sustaining activity, and product-level activity.
Benefits of Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
Activity-based costing (ABC) enhances the costing process in three ways. First, it expands the number of cost pools that can be used to assemble overhead costs. Instead of accumulating all costs in one company-wide pool, it pools costs by activity.
Second, it creates new bases for assigning overhead costs to items such that costs are allocated based on the activities that generate costs instead of on volume measures, such as machine hours or direct labor costs.
Finally, ABC alters the nature of several indirect costs, making costs previously considered indirect—such as depreciation, utilities, or salaries—traceable to certain activities. Alternatively, ABC transfers overhead costs from high-volume products to low-volume products, raising the unit cost of low-volume products.
Absorption costing, sometimes called “full costing,” is a managerial accounting method for capturing all costs associated with manufacturing a particular product. All direct and indirect costs, such as direct materials, direct labor, rent, and insurance, are accounted for when using this method.
Under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), U.S. companies may use absorption costing for external reporting, however variable costing is disallowed.
Key Takeaways
Absorption costing differs from variable costing because it allocates fixed overhead costs to each unit of a product produced in the period.
Absorption costing allocates fixed overhead costs to a product whether or not it was sold in the period.
This type of costing method means that more cost is included in the ending inventory, which is carried over into the next period as an asset on the balance sheet.
Because more expenses are included in ending inventory, expenses on the income statement are lower when using absorption costing.
Understanding Absorption Costing
Absorption costing includes anything that is a direct cost in producing a good in its cost base. Absorption costing also includes fixed overhead charges as part of the product costs. Some of the costs associated with manufacturing a product include wages for employees physically working on the product, the raw materials used in producing the product, and all of the overhead costs (such as all utility costs) used in production.
In contrast to the variable costing method, every expense is allocated to manufactured products, whether or not they are sold by the end of the period.
Higher and Lower Items
Absorption costing means that ending inventory on the balance sheet is higher, while expenses on the income statement are lower.
Components of Absorption Costing
The components of absorption costing include both direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs are those costs that can be directly traced to a specific product or service. These costs include raw materials, labor, and any other direct expenses that are incurred in the production process.
Indirect costs are those costs that cannot be directly traced to a specific product or service. These costs are also known as overhead expenses and include things like utilities, rent, and insurance. Indirect costs are typically allocated to products or services based on some measure of activity, such as the number of units produced or the number of direct labor hours required to produce the product.
In absorption costing, both direct and indirect costs are included in the cost of a product. This means that the cost of each unit of a product includes not only the direct costs of producing that unit, but also a portion of the indirect costs that were incurred in the production process. The total manufacturing costs are then divided by the number of units produced to determine the cost of each unit. The formula for absorption costing can be written as follows:
Absorption cost = (Direct labor costs + Direct material costs + Variable manufacturing overhead costs + Fixed manufacturing overhead) / Number of units produced.
Absorption Costing vs. Variable Costing
Absorption costing and variable costing are two different methods of costing that are used to calculate the cost of a product or service. While both methods are used to calculate the cost of a product, they differ in the types of costs that are included and the purposes for which they are used. The differences between absorption costing and variable costing lie in how fixed overhead costs are treated.
Under absorption costing, all manufacturing costs, both direct and indirect, are included in the cost of a product. This means that the cost of each unit of a product includes not only the direct costs of producing that unit, such as raw materials and labor, but also a portion of the indirect costs that were incurred in the production process, such as overhead expenses. Absorption costing is typically used for external reporting purposes, such as calculating the cost of goods sold for financial statements.
Variable costing, on the other hand, only includes direct costs in the cost of a product. Indirect costs, or overhead expenses, are not included in the cost of the product under variable costing. Instead, they are treated as a period expense and are recorded in the income statement in the period in which they are incurred. Variable costing is typically used for management decision-making and planning purposes, as it provides a more accurate representation of the incremental costs associated with producing an additional unit of a product.
Variable costing does not determine a per-unit cost of fixed overheads, while absorption costing does. Variable costing will yield one lump-sum expense line item for fixed overhead costs when calculating net income on the income statement. Absorption costing will result in two categories of fixed overhead costs: those attributable to the cost of goods sold, and those attributable to inventory.
Absorption costing results in a higher net income compared with variable costing.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Absorption Costing
Assets, such as inventory, remain on the entity’s balance sheet at the end of the period. Because absorption costing allocates fixed overhead costs to both cost of goods sold and inventory, the costs associated with items still in ending inventory will not be captured in the expenses on the current period’s income statement. Absorption costing reflects more fixed costs attributable to ending inventory.
Absorption costing ensures more accurate accounting for ending inventory because the expenses associated with that inventory are linked to the full cost of the inventory still on hand. In addition, more expenses are accounted for in unsold products, which reduces actual expenses reported in the current period on the income statement. This results in a higher net income calculation compared with variable costing calculations.
Because absorption costing includes fixed overhead costs in the cost of its products, it is unfavorable compared with variable costing when management is making internal incremental pricing decisions. This is because variable costing will only include the extra costs of producing the next incremental unit of a product.
In addition, the use of absorption costing generates a situation in which simply manufacturing more items that go unsold by the end of the period will increase net income. Because fixed costs are spread across all units manufactured, the unit fixed cost will decrease as more items are produced. Therefore, as production increases, net income naturally rises, because the fixed-cost portion of the cost of goods sold will decrease.
Pros and Cons of Absorption Costing
Pros
Provides a more complete picture of the total cost of a product by including both direct and indirect costs.
Helps in determining the total actual cost of goods sold and the cost of inventory on the balance sheet.
Allows a company to understand the full cost of each product or service it provides.
Cons
May not accurately reflect the incremental costs associated with producing an additional unit of a product, as it includes fixed overhead costs that do not vary with production volume.
Can lead to distorted cost data if there are significant changes in production volume.
May not provide as much information for management decision-making as variable costing.
Example of Absorption Costing
Assume that ABC Company makes widgets. In January, it makes 10,000 widgets, of which 8,000 are sold by the end of the month, leaving 2,000 still in inventory. Each widget uses $5 of labor and materials directly attributable to the item. In addition, there are $20,000 of fixed overhead costs each month associated with the production facility. Under the absorption costing method, ABC will assign an additional $2 to each widget for fixed overhead costs ($20,000 total ÷ 10,000 widgets produced in the month).
The absorption cost per unit is $7 ($5 labor and materials + $2 fixed overhead costs). As 8,000 widgets were sold, the total cost of goods sold is $56,000 ($7 total cost per unit × 8,000 widgets sold). The ending inventory will include $14,000 worth of widgets ($7 total cost per unit × 2,000 widgets still in ending inventory).
What’s the Difference Between Variable Costing and Absorption Costing?
Absorption costing and variable costing treat fixed overhead costs differently. Absorption costing allocates fixed overhead costs across all units produced for the period. Variable costing, on the other hand, adds all fixed overhead costs together and reports the expense as one line item separate from the cost of goods sold or still available for sale. In other words, variable costing will yield one lump-sum expense line item for fixed overhead costs when calculating net income, while absorption costing will result in two categories of fixed overhead costs: those attributable to the cost of goods sold, and those attributable to inventory.
What Are the Advantages of Absorption Costing?
The main advantage of absorption costing is that it complies with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which are required by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Furthermore, it takes into account all of the costs of production (including fixed costs), not just the direct costs, and more accurately tracks profit during an accounting period.
What Are the Disadvantages of Absorption Costing?
The main disadvantage of absorption costing is that it can inflate a company’s profitability during a given accounting period, as all fixed costs are not deducted from revenues unless all of the company’s manufactured products are sold. Additionally, it is not helpful for analysis designed to improve operational and financial efficiency or for comparing product lines.
When Is It Appropriate to Use Absorption Costing?
Absorption costing is typically used in situations where a company wants to understand the full cost of producing a product or providing a service. This includes cases where a company is required to report its financial results to external stakeholders, such as shareholders or regulatory agencies.
Absorption costing is also often used for internal decision-making purposes, such as determining the selling price of a product or deciding whether to continue producing a particular product. In these cases, the company may use absorption costing to understand the full cost of producing the product and to determine whether the product is generating sufficient profits to justify its continued production.
What Are the Types of Absorption Costing?
There are two main types of absorption costing: full absorption costing and partial absorption costing:
Full absorption costing includes all of the costs associated with producing a product or providing a service, including both fixed and variable costs. Under full absorption costing, the total cost of a product or service is absorbed, or spread out, over the units produced. This means that the cost of each unit produced includes a portion of the fixed costs, as well as the variable costs associated with that unit.
Partial absorption costing includes only some of the costs associated with producing a product or providing a service. Under partial absorption costing, only a portion of the fixed costs are included in the cost of each unit produced. The remainder of the fixed costs are treated as a period cost and are expensed in the period in which they are incurred.
The Bottom Line
Absorption costing is a method of costing that includes all manufacturing costs, both fixed and variable, in the cost of a product. It is also known as full costing or full absorption costing. Absorption costing is used to determine the cost of goods sold and ending inventory balances on the income statement and balance sheet, respectively. It is also used to calculate the profit margin on each unit of product and to determine the selling price of the product.
Under absorption costing, the fixed manufacturing overhead costs are included in the cost of a product as an indirect cost. These costs are not directly traceable to a specific product but are incurred in the process of manufacturing the product. The fixed manufacturing overhead costs are allocated to each unit of product based on a predetermined overhead allocation rate, which is calculated by dividing the total estimated fixed manufacturing overhead costs by the total number of units that are expected to be produced. In addition to the fixed manufacturing overhead costs, absorption costing also includes the variable manufacturing costs in the cost of a product. These costs are directly traceable to a specific product and include direct materials, direct labor, and variable overhead.
