Transformed Full Cost Accounting in Product Profitability Analysis

Abstract

The primary application of full cost accounting is to establish an actual unit cost of a product on the level of its technical production which would include the costs directly related to manufactured products as well as indirect production costs. This kind of cost accounting provides information and a tool for control, since it is the current standard of report accounting. It gives data concerning the incurred cost of products as well as of the type of business activity, not always reflecting their amount adequately. It has become particularly ineffective in calculating the unit cost of products in the case when high indirect costs are involved.

This kind of accounting does not represent the real cost of particular products and, at the same time, their profitability. Therefore the applicability of this cost accounting in a decision-making process is limited. It is the reason for seeking new solutions in the field of cost accounting which would

– on one hand remove the main drawback of the full cost accounting, which is calculating direct costs of production by using an arbitrary key,
– on the other hand take into account, while calculating costs, also the ones which do not constitute basic operating expenses but can be ascribed to particular products.

This publication presents methods of transforming the information generated by a book-keeping model of costs accounting for the purpose of a decision-making process. The results related to the product profitability obtained by application of full cost accounting and cost accounting transformed for the purpose of decision-making, are different. On the basis of a conducted analysis it can be said that the transformed cost accounting is more precise in calculating costs and accurate profitability of manufactured products.