Do you want to get rid of the dubious overhead surcharges in your cost accounting? And start being aware about all the costs? Both in terms of variable and fixed costs?
Then the introduction of the activity based costing is the perfect solution for your company.
The introduction of the activity based costing is a consulting project that lasts from 3 to 6 months. The number of days required depends on the quantity of cost types, cost centers and objects, the cooperation of the executives and the data quality.
In order to ensure the successful implementation, it is crucial to involve the employees in the project. During the kick-off meeting, we clarify the project objectives and procedures.
Clarifying discussions with the cost center managers, e.g. production manager, machine operator, sales manager, financial accounting, QA leader etc.:
How can the costs be allocated to the individual work steps? For example, in the “customer care” process, the work steps of the internal sales inspection service, the bid submission, the customer order entry, the master data maintenance, the financial accounting compliance information, the invoice checks and the reminders come into play.
The solution is to convert the work steps to reference quantities in terms of units per output: units, hours, treatments, running meters, liters, kg, kilometers, etc.
Thus, a price list can be determined for each work step. There is e.g. 5 euros per audit.
After determining the actual fixed costs per work step and reference quantity – and no fictitious fixed costs surcharges – we can calculate the individual products:
Together with the sales department, we can now carry out the sales and sales planning – according to the quantities and sales.
The planning process can be divided into customers, customer groups, sales staff, region, product and product group.