The costs of the enterprise are costs and losses that are incurred in connection with the implementation of its core business. As a rule, they form a decrease or outflow of an asset. The expenses of the enterprise are reflected in the accounting documents on losses and profits in accordance with the direct relationship between the receipts of funds for specific items and the costs incurred. This technique is called the matching of revenues and costs. In reporting, therefore, correlates income and accounting costs for their receipt.
In accordance with the accounting technique, costs should be accumulated in the relevant accounts: “materials”, “payroll”, “depreciation”, “main production” and “finished products”. These funds should not be debited to the sales account until the services, work, products with which they are interconnected will not be sold. Only at the time of marketing does the company recognize its profits and the associated costs. Regarding the “sales” account, the entity’s expenses essentially reflect the cost of goods sold.
In accordance with the place of occurrence, costs are grouped by workshops, industries, sections and other structural divisions of the company. Such a union is necessary for the formation of accounting in accordance with responsibility centers and setting the production cost of services, works or goods.
Cost carriers are those services, works or products that are intended for sale.
By types of expenses, enterprises are divided by counting items and economically homogeneous components.
Management accounting has a very diverse classification, which depends on the task that needs to be solved. The main ones include:
- calculation of the cost of manufactured goods and determining the amount of income received;
- planning and decision making;
- regulation and control over the activities of responsibility centers.
The solution to each problem corresponds to a certain classification of costs. So, to calculate the cost of manufactured goods and determine the amount of income received, the costs are divided into:
- direct and indirect;
- expired and incoming;
- complex and one-component;
- non-production and production (included in the cost of goods);
- one-time and current;
- basic and overhead costs.
The following costs are allocated for planning and decision making:
- conditionally constant, variables, constants, conditionally variable;
- accepted and not taken into account in evaluations;
- imputed;
- irrevocable;
- unplanned and planned;
- incremental and marginal.
To ensure the functions of regulation and control in management accounting, unregulated and regulated costs are allocated. Particular importance is attached to the adjustment of costs in accordance with the actually achieved production volume, that is, the formation of flexible estimates.
The main costs of the company include all resources. This category includes objects of labor in the form of raw materials, purchased semi-finished products, basic materials. The main costs include amortization of fixed assets of production, salaries of key employees, along with accruals on it and so on. The consumption of all these resources is associated with the manufacture of goods (provision of services).
The formation of overhead costs is due to management functions, which, in accordance with their purpose, role and nature, differ from production functions. These costs are usually associated with the management and organization of the company and are considered indirect in accordance with the method of assigning them to a medium (accounting object).