Читать книгу Cost Accounting For Dummies - Kenneth W. Boyd - Страница 104

To this point, Prestige has analyzed direct costs, meaning costs that can be traced to the project (both fixed and variable). To determine total costs, Julie must allocate indirect cost. You’ll find a fascinating discussion of direct costs and indirect costs in Chapter 2.

Most business owners do not properly account for indirect costs, and they project total costs to be much lower than the actual total. Every cost you incur, whether directly traced to a customer or not, must be included in the price of your product or service. This point is made throughout the book, so be ready!

Here are Prestige’s largest indirect costs:

 Home office costs: Salary and benefits paid to office support staff, and the lease payment on the office building.

 Asset depreciation expense: Prestige purchases hardware and software for use on many customer projects, and buys office furniture. Each of these assets incurs depreciation expense.

Prestige also incurs marketing and advertising costs, which are indirect costs. These costs are allocated, based on a level of activity (labor hours, number of customer projects, and so on.) You can allocate indirect costs more precisely using activity-based costing, which is explained in Chapter 5.