Читать книгу Cost Accounting For Dummies - Kenneth W. Boyd - Страница 37

Consider a lease payment for a piece of equipment. Whether your production increases or decreases, the check you write for the lease stays the same. The cost is fixed in your lease agreement.

Say the lease payment is $500 per month, and that you manufacture office desks. You can’t directly trace the lease payment to the product you produce — the cost is indirect. So you allocate the lease payment cost to each desk you produce. In March you produce 1,000 desks. The equipment lease is $500 ÷ 1,000 desks, or $0.50 per desk.

In April, you make 800 desks. The April equipment lease is $500 ÷ 800 desks, or $0.63 per desk. Because you produce fewer desks in April but the lease payment doesn’t change, you allocate a larger cost per unit (desk).

There’s a difference between total fixed costs and the fixed costs per unit. The total fixed costs don’t change with your activity level. Fixed costs per unit do change as your production level goes up or down. As a strategy, businesses aim to produce and sell as much as they can for the same amount of fixed costs. That strategy generates the lowest possible fixed cost per unit.