In: Accounting
In a service company, a large percentage of overhead costs are company-wide costs. Why does this present a unique challenge for an ABC implementation in a service company, as compared to a manufacturing company?
Service companies are basically concerned with the services they
provide to their customers. It is very different from the product
manufacturing companies as service providing companies do not
physically sell goods rather they provide their services.
Example : accounting firm. An accounting firm prepares and
maintenance the accounting data of their customers, so basically
they are providing their services not selling goods.
In service companies, the company-wide costs are related to
their administrative department as service providing companies do
not manufacture any product so their main company-wide costs are
related to this department.
Now implementation of ABC in a service company as compared to
manufacturing company presents a unique challenge. This is because
ABC costing is activity based costing and in-service providing
company activities cannot be measured easily.
Also in ABC costing the activities in an organisation are to be
identified first and then according to their consumption the costs
are allocated.