Product Costing
What a thing should cost, what it did cost, and why those two numbers differ — split six ways, because each names a different department.
13 steps · 10 questions · 13 screens on this shelf
The screens on this shelf
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Cost Estimates
Explode the bill of material, price it, walk the routing, apply the overhead. Released, the estimate becomes the standard — and a standard that can be edited makes every variance since January a fiction.
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Cost Itemisation
One row per input, at whatever level of the bill of material it came from — which is what makes "why does this cost 42.60" answerable rather than merely assertable.
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Costing Runs
Select, cost, mark, release. Marking and releasing are separate on purpose: a company marks in December and releases on 1 January.
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Variance Analysis
Six categories, because each names a different department: price is purchasing, quantity is production, rate is the cost center, efficiency is the routing. A single "manufacturing variance" tells nobody what to do.
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Material Ledger
What an item ACTUALLY cost in a period, once every purchase price difference and production variance is rolled back in. The only honest answer to "what did the goods we sold in March cost us".
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Costing Variants
Where the material price comes from. The same bill of material costed at standard, moving average and last purchase price gives three different answers and all three are defensible.
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Overhead Rules
How indirect cost is added on top. Crude, universal, and exactly what activity-based costing was invented to replace — which is why both are supported.
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Cost Elements
A GL account seen from the controlling side. A SECONDARY element exists only inside controlling — posting one to a real expense account would double the company’s costs, so the database refuses it.
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Cost Components
A cost of 42.60 is not analysable. Split into material, labour, machine, setup and overhead it tells a plant manager which of the five to attack.
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Activity Types
What a cost center provides: machine hours, labour hours, setup, inspection. How a cost center’s cost reaches a product, and the same machinery activity-based costing uses.
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Activity Rates
What one hour of that activity costs, from that cost center. The PLANNED rate charges orders all year; the ACTUAL rate is only knowable afterwards, and the difference is what actual costing settles.
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Activity Postings
One consumption: this order used 4.2 machine hours from that cost center on that day. The row that carries cost from a cost center to a product.
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Cost Center Absorption
What a cost center cost, what it charged out, and what it failed to absorb. Under-absorption is idle capacity, and it is the number a plant manager is actually held to.
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