Costing Systems

Book excerpt: Costing Systems provides a structured overview of costing system research to explain the co-existence of different costing practices. This body of research has come to prescriptive conclusions, which will of be valuable and insightful to practitioners designing costing systems and managers using reported cost data. The monograph is structured around four primary purposes of cost measurement: decision-making, cost management, inventory valuation for financial and tax accounting, and control and performance measurement. Part 1 of the monograph relates to the production or supply choices made by costing system designers. Part 2 moves onto the demand side for cost information. This monograph aims to be useful both to novices in the costing field who are searching for a primer on this literature as well as for people familiar with the literature who are interested in a structured overview and thoughts on where future research avenues may lead.