Methods of cost accounting include collecting information on costs (due to the sale, production and purchase of services or products), analyzing the total amount and determining methods that allow you to calculate the cost of any type of product or service quite accurately. The use of certain specific methods and techniques is determined by the relevant policies of the organization. This policy is formed directly depending on the nature of the economic activity of the enterprise.
Cost accounting methods are part of one of the structures of the accounting system. At the same time, production and accounting costing are interconnected. This is due to the fact that there are uniform procedures for processing business operations documented, an assessment of the cost of the procedures is carried out. In this case, cost accounting methods acquire a managerial focus.
When converting data into a management information base and supplementing it with operational information, internal reporting of financially responsible persons, a single integrated information system is formed. It allows you to provide the most effective cost management.
To create a rational organization of the cost management system, not only cost accounting methods are important, but also objects of calculation and accounting, calculation units and methods of calculating the cost of production.
The object of costing includes the product at different stages of readiness.
To reflect costs in accordance with the choice of one or another accounting object, different methods can be used.
A simple way to use with simple production. This production has several distinctive features. In particular, there is a small and uniform range of products, which is obtained as a result of a short one-stage technological process.
The custom method is used in industries for which individual orders are characteristic. In accordance with them, the grouping and localization of direct manufacturing costs are carried out. Until the completion of the order, the costs of it are work in progress. After its delivery (regardless of the duration of the execution), the costs amount to the cost of the finished product.
In mass production, an alternate cost accounting method is used. The main feature here is the release of products by sequential processing of materials and raw materials into semi-finished products, and then into the finished product. Moreover, cost accounting is carried out in accordance with the redistribution (workshops) and (where possible) the types of goods produced. The costs associated with the operation of the equipment are also taken into account. They are accounted for and distributed in the workshops in accordance with the type of product.
The process-based cost accounting method allows you to determine the cost of products manufactured in one or more technological stages (processes). The essence of this method is that the costs follow the products along the production chain. In other words, at the end of any operation, costs are accumulated. Their volume is related to the normative or average standard size.
In some enterprises, the boiler method can be used to reduce the complexity of accounting work. In this case, the definition and systematization of costs is carried out throughout the enterprise, workshop or product groups as a whole.
The regulatory system provides for actual accounting with the determination of subsequently deviations from the approved norms, as well as identifying the causes of these deviations.