The problem of costs is a topic that has been developed in multiple investigations, mainly in companies that produce goods and services, by establishing norms, procedures, or systems that regulate their operation and control. It is necessary to conform a new vision of costs with a systemic approach, in such a way to locate it as a component of said system, in charge of controlling, registering and analyzing the operation of the company, guaranteeing decision-making that allows the achievement of goals. proposals.
The present work is aimed at highlighting the importance of linking the cost issue, in order to guarantee the correct administration, use and control of human, material and financial resources.
In this article we present important elements related to the theoretical foundation of costs, in techniques based on ABC cost; managers need information on costs that allow them to make decisions that maximize business performance, since traditional cost systems are not effective, which contributes to providing erroneous information on the margins and profitability of products and services.
Introduction
In today's world there are important transformations in the functioning of the world economy, characterized by a global recession, in which Cuba is not totally exempt from its effects, nor is it oblivious to the ills that affect humanity; particularly third world countries which has led to substantial changes in business activity and the need for some financial stability in companies; being forced in these circumstances to make better use of resources, increase labor productivity, achieve better results with less costs, for which reason what was expressed by Commander Fidel Castro Ruz in the Report of the Third Congress of the PCC carried out in the year 1986."All efforts must lead to the sustained increase in labor productivity while ensuring full employment of labor resources, reducing costs and increasing the profitability of companies; in addition to efficiency ”.
The elevation of efficiency and social production constitute the cornerstone of the economic policy of the Communist Party, Carlos Lage in 1997, when presenting the Draft Economic Resolution to the V Congress of the PCC, expressed: “Efficiency must be transformed from an economic concept into a mode of act, control and demand, from those who direct to each worker. Socialism, in addition to justice, is efficiency and quality. What is not efficient is not socialist and what does not have quality should not be produced. ”
Increasing efficiency is a first-order requirement, however, together with this arduous struggle in itself, the complexity and imperatives of today's circumstances force us to take progressive, parallel and interlocking steps that, while helping to maintain the level of existence of the country - reducing the inefficiency that characterizes the bulk of the economy and, at the same time reducing cost in the part of these that have conditions that allow the economic recovery to be adjusted on new bases in accordance with external trends that allow ensure lasting and sustainable competitive advantages.
The implementation of the bases of business improvement imposes new management methods that allow obtaining greater efficiency through the rational use of material, financial and human resources, which implies the systematic reduction of the costs of the production of goods and services.
The achievement of cost reduction, quality increase and optimization of company results is achieved through the implementation of new cost systems such as: ABC, ABB and ABM.
R. Cooper and R. Kaplan (1999), affirm that service companies are ideal for the application of an ABC cost system, even more than industrial companies. Since they have few direct materials, and a large part of their personnel provide indirect and non-direct support to services and clients, without having an adequate reference to measure these costs.
In investigations carried out, it has been verified that in the management groups that provide internal services to the Copextel SA corporation, there is no cost system that contributes to cost management, which is the basis of the problem situation of this investigation.
For this reason, the scientific problem of this research centers on the need to design cost techniques that allow the registration, control and calculation of internal services for decision-making that contribute to obtaining effective, efficient and competitive results.
The present work has a theoretical significance because it delves into the characteristics of the ABC cost system. The practical significance of the work is evident in the design of the techniques proposed for calculating the cost in the Internal Service companies, in other Chapters.
Chapter I.- Theoretical foundation
1.1 Financial and management accounting
Accounting is the language of financial decisions, it is the main means of communication regarding the financial impact of the company's activities. This helps decision-making, showing the origin and destination of money, the ability to pay to cover obligations, evaluating performance.
The users of the Accounting are the managers, who need to evaluate the ability to pay, performance, as well as management in economic activity. Creditors, lenders, tax authorities, and investors are also users of accounting. The accounting according to the use of the information is classified in Financial Accounting and Management Accounting, which is shown in the following scheme.
Financial Accounting together with Management Accounting are the two most important branches of accounting, both arising from the need for specialization and fulfillment of clearly defined purposes.
Financial Accounting is in charge of the classification, recording and interpretation of economic transactions, reflecting the economic situation of the company at the end of the accounting year (Financial Statements). It constitutes a source of information for external users (investors, financial analysts, creditors, government agencies and other interested groups).
In this sense, it is considered that Financial Accounting is primarily interested in the Financial Statements for external use.
Management Accounting as a branch of Accounting is in charge of identifying, measuring and evaluating the internal circulation of the company, rationalizing and controlling its resources to provide its managers with the necessary and sufficient information that allows them to adopt internal and short-term decisions depending on the organization, according to the proposed goals.
In its broadest sense, Management Accounting is defined by the NNA in the SMA Statemen No. 1A, as the process of:
Identification: The recognition and evaluation of commercial transactions and other economic facts for an appropriate accounting action.
Measurement: Quantification, which includes estimates of business transactions or other economic events that have been caused or may be caused.
Accumulation: The orderly and consistent approach to the proper recording and classification of business transactions and other economic events.
Analysis: The determination of the reasons and the relationships of the activity related to other facts and circumstances of an economic nature.
Preparation and interpretation: Coordination of accounting and / or planning of data presented in a logical way so that they satisfy a need for information, and if appropriate, include the conclusions drawn from these data.
Communication: The presentation of pertinent information to management and others for internal and external uses.
Accounting dedicated to information for internal purposes has been one of the most widely used instruments as an information system for management, since it allows to know the result of the company and each of its areas, decisively contributing to the decision-making process.
It is of great importance for organizations as it aims to serve as an orientation or starting point for all kinds of internal decisions at different levels within the short-term time horizon. Management uses Management Accounting to:
Plan: Understand the commercial transactions and expected economic events and their impact on the Company.
Evaluate: Make judgment on the contradictions of different past and / or future events.
Control: Ensure that the financial information that concerns the activities of the organization and its environment is complete.
Ensure Accounting: Establish an information system that considers the responsibilities of the organization and analyzes the effectiveness of management performance.
Management is nourished for decision-making fundamentally in management accounting, since it provides information about the internal framework of the company as it is the carrier of relevant data that allows knowing the result of the company and its areas, accounting that must be adapted to the correct use of its resources, avoid waste. Having within its plans continuous improvement, as well as the development of new cost systems, playing a decisive role in information.
When designing new cost systems it is essential to take into account the different purposes of Management Accounting as a prop for the development of the organization.
Management Accounting Objectives
As organizations develop, due to the information they render to management, Management Accounting evolves along with it, which changes in relation to the economic and social environment, attending to competition and the appearance of new technologies that influence in this evolution.
Taking into account that the evolution of Management Accounting has been related to the development of business management and the obligations of organizations at each stage of economic development, the following are summarized as its main purposes:
- The evaluation of inventories and determination of profits. The planning and control of business operations. The decision making.
The Inventory and Profits Assessment refers to the process of accumulating the costs of an organization's products and services, which can be used by managers primarily as a guide for setting sales prices, satisfying the needs of external reports, when presenting the cost of inventories and profits for the period.
The role of cost is often restricted to this function applicable to the concept of Cost Accounting from which Management Accounting emerged and developed, currently constituting one of its fundamental subsets.
For its part, planning and control are two closely related elements. Planning consists of establishing objectives and ways to achieve them and control is the execution of the decision made and performance evaluation based on the results obtained. Related to these aspects, budgets and execution reports are of great importance, basic tools to help management throughout the planning and control process, by analyzing the results.
Management Accounting in addition to the objectives set out above pursues:
1. Inform the people involved in the organization, providing them with the required information, making use of the ideal information system for good management.
2. It indicates the adequate and precise way to make use of the resources with efficiency and effectiveness.
3. It encourages those involved in achieving the objectives to use the systems linked to management control.
The role that Management Accounting plays in the organization is important for the decision-making process and in management control, responding to the needs established by the business management.
1.2 Cost Accounting. Definition. Importance.
Cost Accounting is a branch of Management Accounting which is fundamentally related to the accumulation and analysis of cost information for internal use by managers, in inventory valuation, planning, control and management. decision making.
The Association of Accountants of the United States (NAA) defines Cost Accounting in the Statement on Management Accounting (DCG) Number 2 ¹ as:
"Technique or method to determine the cost of a project, process or product, used by most legal entities in a company or specifically recommended by an authorized accounting group"
Cost Accounting is a part of Accounting referring to the internal activity of the company, mainly to the following aspects
- Know costs and returns of production factors and work centers. Costs of finished or semi-finished products or services. Evaluate inventories. Establish margins.
The main objectives of Cost Accounting are:
- Evaluate the efficiency in terms of the use of material, financial and labor force resources that are used in the activity. Serve as a basis for determining the prices of products or services. Facilitate the assessment of possible decisions to be made., that allow the selection of that variant, that provides the greatest benefit with the minimum of expenses. Classify the expenses according to their nature and origin. Analyze the expenses and their behavior, with respect to the norms established for the production in question. Analyze the possibility of reducing expenses. Analyze the costs of each structural subdivision of the company, based on the expense budgets prepared for it. A very accurate definition of cost is Pedersen's:"Cost is the consumption valued in money of goods and services for the production that constitutes the objective of the company"
For Schneider cost "… the monetary equivalent of the goods applied or consumed in the production process. '
The French General Accounting Plan contains the following definition: “The cost price of an object, of a benefit, of a group of objects or of benefits, is all that this object, this benefit, this group of objects or of benefits, in the state in which it is at the final moment. ”
“The cost is constituted by the partial or total consumption of the inputs that in any production process contribute to obtaining the outputs. The cost represents the valuation, in monetary terms, of this contribution with the inputs to obtain the output. ”
The inputs and outputs are the inputs and outputs of the production process; entries refer to direct materials, direct labor, and other manufacturing overhead; outputs are associated with finished products or services provided.
In Cost Accounting, Horngren defines cost as "… the means in the conventional accounting form, in monetary units, that must be paid to acquire goods and services."
The cost is defined by Polimeni as: "The value sacrificed to obtain goods or services."
It is appropriate to clarify that: “Every sacrifice, to be cost, must increase the value of the good to which it is applied; any sacrifice that does not meet this condition must be considered as a waste. ”
The concepts expressed on the term cost have been diverse, although all agree that cost is the value of material and human resources, consumed or used in the elaboration of a product or in the provision of a service, which constitutes a measure of productive economic efficiency, so its behavior makes it easy to evaluate the results.
Cost does not arise until consumption is made, so it cannot be identified with the concept of expenditure that precedes cost. The cost takes care of the moment of consumption, the expense refers to the moment of acquisition.
1.3 Classification of costs
In the review carried out on the cost classification criteria, the following are evaluated:
1. In relation to the elements that comprise it:
Production or industrial cost: Includes the cost of materials, labor and other manufacturing costs; it is normally used as a stock valuation criterion. When the product is sold the cost of production is offloaded on the cost of the items sold.
Distribution cost: It is the cost related to the marketing and delivery of products to customers.
Company cost: It is the total cost of the period obtained by aggregation of production and distribution costs.
2. Regarding the production volume:
Fixed cost: It is the one in which the total fixed cost remains constant, regardless of whether the level of activity of the company varies, while the fixed cost per unit varies with production, that is, the fixed cost per unit is reduced to As the activity increases, by dividing the fixed costs among a greater number of units.
Variable cost: It is the one in which the total variable cost changes in direct proportion to the variations in the production volume, while the
unit variable cost remains constant.
Mixed cost: It is one that contains both fixed and variable cost characteristics.
The figure above shows the behavior of costs according to their variability with the level of activity.
3. In relation to production:
Prime cost: It is the one directly related to the manufacture of a product; equals the sum of direct materials and direct labor, that is, the direct cost items.
Conversion cost: It is the one incurred in the transformation of direct materials into finished articles; It is made up of direct labor and indirect manufacturing costs. It is observed that it considers direct labor as a direct item and incorporates indirect cost items.
4. Regarding their possible assignment:
Direct cost: It is the cost of materials and labor capable of identifying with specific items or areas. This, like the prime costs, includes direct items.
Indirect cost: It is the one that, by affecting the process as a whole, is not directly identifiable with any article or area, so it is necessary to use allocation techniques for its distribution. This reflects indirect cost items as well as conversion costs.
5. Regarding the functions:
Manufacturing cost: Relates to the production of an item; it is the sum of direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead.
Marketing cost: The sale of a product or service is incurred.
Administrative cost: The direction, control and operation of a company are incurred; includes payment of salary to management and office staff.
Financial cost: It is related to obtaining funds for the operation of the company; It includes the cost of interest on loans as well as the cost of granting loans to clients.
6. Regarding the degree of control:
Controllable cost: Those in charge of the areas of responsibility can exert direct influence on it.
Uncontrollable cost: It is not under the direct influence of the managers of the areas; their responsibility is assumed by the upper management levels.
7. Regarding the moment of calculation:
Real, retrospective, historical or effective cost: It is calculated from the actual consumption in the production process over a period of time.
Standard, prospective or predetermined cost: It is calculated from predetermined consumption, at a price determined for a future period; It can be considered as a standard cost.
8. Regarding planning, control and decision making:
Standard cost: It is the cost per unit of direct materials, direct labor and indirect manufacturing costs, which should be incurred in a production process under normal conditions; satisfy the same purpose of the budget.
Budgeted cost: It is the total costs expected to be incurred in a certain period.
9. Regarding its economic nature:
Cost elements:
- Raw materials and materials.Fuels.Energy.Wages.Contributions to social security.Tax of the Workforce.Depreciation.Amortization.Other monetary expenses.
For a more detailed analysis, sub-elements can be used to obtain more effective information on the resources used in the production of goods and services.
1.3 Cost systems.
Cost systems are methods that are used to know the costs of different products or services.
The development of these methods is linked to the evolution of companies over time.
In the first decades of the 20th century, companies were engaged in the production of a single product, after the Industrial Revolution, companies began to manufacture various products. Back then, most of the costs were the direct costs of materials and direct labor.
Cost managers dealt only with those assets that were consumed during the production process and not with investments, also paying almost zero attention to the expenses incurred in administrative and commercial decisions. Premises that were valid, due to the very low proportion of investment costs and administrative and commercial expenses versus the costs of the assets consumed.
At that time, the distribution of manufacturing indirect costs was not complex, as it did not present these significant amounts since they were very low. However, starting in 1930, these costs began to be more important than direct costs, and the following costing methods began to be applied:
Absorption or total cost: it consists of applying to the product or service all costs incurred, be they directly attributable costs or those that in one way or another must be charged directly, that is, variable and fixed costs, except those applicable to sales as well as general management.
This method has limitations that make it impossible to apply cost management, since it does not provide the information required by management to establish optimal policies in control, prices, markets and competitiveness. The following elements affect this:
- Use of truly arbitrary indirect cost distribution procedures, which do not provide significant benefits. Limitation in the setting of individual responsibility for the results in efficiency.
Direct costing: applies to the product or service only variable costs, fixed costs are not assigned to the product or service. Variable costs are generally direct material and direct labor costs and variable indirect costs.
SHAPE \ * MERGEFORMAT
As can be seen in the figure above, direct costing differs from absorbing, in that fixed costs are treated as period expenses, that is, they are charged to results and not as a cost of the product that is assigned to the units produced or services performed.
The limitations of this method are:
- It further complicates the problem of joint cost sharing. It is inappropriate for determining product costs on farms with differential production schedules. It can lead to distorted cost information from cost analytical centers by not taking into account their loads. of structure.
Costing by area of responsibility, is a system designed to relate it to an organization, whereby expenses are recorded and reported on responsibility to each structural area, so that each area or department constitutes a cost center, customizing the financial statements showing its plan, the actual execution and its deviations, thereby achieving the fundamental objectives of the cost related to: planning and control, inventory valuation and results measurement.
The principle of this method is that those results related to the authority that has been conferred on them will be controlled with respect to each manager, regardless of whether those results occur within their organizational unit.
Therefore, the costing method by area of responsibility is not a system in itself, but a particular way of composing and presenting the cost figures, applicable to any cost system.
All these traditional management systems present a series of problems or inconveniences since they provide erroneous information about the margins and profitability of products and services.
For this reason, it is necessary to go in search of new costing systems that contribute to control, decrease costs and increase economic efficiency, and this is achieved through the implementation of ABC techniques, activity-based management (ABM)., activity-based operational budgets, their analysis and control, customer study and their use in decision-making.
1.4 Characteristics of the ABC cost system
In 1991, Brimson defined activity accounting as "the accumulation of information on operational and financial performance in relation to the significant activities of a company". (10)
R. Cooper and R. Kaplan (1999) affirm that the ABC model "is an economic map of the costs and profitability of the organization based on activities". (eleven)
R. Cooper and R. Kaplan identified three independent but simultaneous factors which justify the need and practice of the ABC cost system:
The cost structure process has changed dramatically. At the turn of the century, direct labor accounted for approximately 50% of total product costs, while materials accounted for 35% and overhead 15%. Now, overheads typically amount to about 60% of the cost of the product, with materials in the order of 30% and direct labor at just 10%. Obviously, the use of direct labor hours as an allocation basis made sense 90 years ago, but it is not valid within the current cost structure.
The level of competition that most firms face has increased dramatically. The rapidly changing and global competitive environment is not a cliche, it is a disturbing reality for many firms. Knowing the real costs of products is essential to survive in this new competitive situation.
The cost of measurement has come down as information processing technology improves. Even twenty years ago, the cost of accumulating, processing, and analyzing the data necessary to run an ABC system would have been prohibitive. Today, however, these activity measurement systems are not only financially accessible, but much of the data already exists in some form within the organization. Therefore, ABC can be extremely valuable to an organization because it provides information on the scope, cost, and consumption of operating activities.
Strategic benefits and uses derived from the ABC system.
More accurate product and service costs, enabling better strategic decisions to be made regarding:
a) Determination of the price of the product or service.
b) Product combination.
c) Determine the convenience of buying or producing.
d) Investments in research and development.
Secondly, the greater visibility of the activities carried out allows a company to focus on improving high-cost activities, and on the other hand, detect and eliminate non-value-adding activities.
We can summarize the advantages and benefits of applying the ABC in the following points:
- It allows the investigation of the causes that originate the activities and in turn the costs. It does not pose difficulties of implantation in any type of organization. It is compatible with the Total Costs method, or Full Costing, since in fact it is based on the calculation of the total cost. Allows adaptation to both historical costs and Standard costs. Facilitates the elimination of those activities that do not generate added value. Allows the calculation "a priori" of activities to be incorporated, as well as the impact that they they would produce to be carried out. It facilitates strategic decision-making since it shows the real level of competitiveness of the company, as well as the possibilities of success or failure in the face of competition.
In this sense, ABC is considered to emerge as a need for an innovative cost system that meets the new needs of a strategic cost analysis and is considered as the instrumental part of strategic cost management: according to which are the activities of All functional areas of manufacturing, those that consume resources and products consume activities, with the aim of discriminating in activities that add value and those that do not add value to products.
The ABC method goes beyond a department or a cost center. This focuses its attention on the activities carried out in the production process of goods or services, it is framed in the cost of the activities with a view to achieving more effective results for decision making.
The difference between traditional methods and ABC is shown in the following figure.
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The figure denotes that the ABC system is based on the principle that activity is the cause that determines the incurrence of costs and that products or services consume activities.
For this reason it is considered appropriate to consider the concept of process, activity and cost object.
- Process. - It consists of a series of interrelated activities, aimed at a common objective. Activity is a set of tasks or actions that are performed to satisfy a certain need or demand in the company. These constitute processes that consume resources to produce goods or services. An activity describes the way in which a company uses its resources, these being the center of analysis and study of the ABC cost system. Cost object is the product, service or department where costs are accumulated, measured and assigned.
The following diagram shows the interrelation between the elements previously exposed.
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The ABC system aims to eliminate the subjectivity of the processes of allocation of manufacturing overhead or factory load. Through the relationship between activities and products, such subjectivity can be largely eliminated, but for this it is necessary to define appropriate control units and measures to establish that relationship between activities and products.
Those control and measurement units to which it refers receive different names such as cost-drivers, cost generators or cost drivers, among others. These establish the cause-effect relationship between the cost objects and the activities and between these and the responsibility centers, which facilitates the cost effectiveness for decision-making.
The Activity-Based Administration makes it possible to incorporate new analysis techniques such as:
- Activity analysis. Cause / effect analysis through drivers. Analysis of activities that add and do not add value. Quality and customer satisfaction.
The implementation of the ABC is facilitated by the previous existence of a favorable environment, where the value chain is transparent since it is this value, which gives the market the privileged condition for the quality and effectiveness of its services and the prices of the same.
The Cuban business system is in an environment of transformations to achieve business excellence, which is why it is necessary to implement cost systems that enable quality, customer satisfaction and cost optimization, as well as planning and control.
The ABC system allows the allocation and distribution of manufacturing indirect costs according to the activities carried out, identifying the origin of the cost of the activity not only for production and services, but also for distribution and sale, contributing to making of decisions about product or service lines, market segments and customer relations.
According to Brimson, an effective activity accounting system uses the following method:
- Determine the fundamental activities that must be carried out to satisfy the objectives of a company. The activities allow the identification of how a company deploys its resources to achieve its basic objectives. Determine the causal relationships that allow the products (result) to be attributed to the inputs (resources). A large number of these relationships will be based on non-volume measurements such as the number of parts in a new design. Checking the output of an activity in terms of a measure of the volume of activity through which the costs of a process Businesses vary more directly (eg, number of machine configurations required for complex design).Relate activities to products (or other objects) and determine how much of each activity is devoted to them. A cost structure, known as an activity list, is used to describe each consumption pattern of the product's activity. To determine the fundamental success factors through which the company's activities can be aligned with the strategic objectives set. This step indicates how effectively the desired operation is carried out through the activities the company undertakes. Take action, with the philosophy of continuous improvement, on productivity opportunities. Since the cost of activity is the ratio of the resources consumed by an activity to the measure of the activity's production, a means of evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency (i.e.productivity) is available to administrators. Various alternatives for realizing desired changes in activity patterns can now be realistically evaluated through investment or organizational means.
Cost drivers. A cost driver is an event that affects the cost / performance of a group of related activities. Family cost drivers include the number of machine configurations, number of engineering change notices, and number of purchase orders. Cost drivers reflect the demands placed on activities at the activity and production levels. By controlling the cost driver, unnecessary costs can be eliminated, resulting in an improvement in the cost of the product or service.
Direct identification. Direct identification implies attributing costs to those products or processes that consume resources. Many hidden overhead costs can be effectively identified to products, thereby providing a more accurate product cost.
Added costs without any value. In production processes, customers may perceive that certain activities do not add value to the product. By identifying cost drivers, a company can accurately determine these unnecessary costs. Activity-based cost systems identify and place a cost on executed activities (which add value and do not add value) so that management can determine the expected changes in resource requirements for each activity. In contrast, traditional cost systems accumulate costs by budget line item and by item.
In order to compete in today's market, companies need to have information on costs and profitability that allows them to make strategic and operational decisions in the right way. Having this type of information accurately and in a timely manner serves as a basis for the top management of a company to seek to maximize performance, achieving more cost-effective management for decision-making.
In a next chapter techniques for cost management in the internal services of a Commercial Company are proposed.
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