The Economic Essence of the Category of «Costs» as an Object of Accounting and Internal Control

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to disclose the economic essence of the category of «costs» as an object of accounting and internal control. A number of approaches to defining the economic essence of the concepts of «costs», «control» and «internal control» have been allocated. In the course of the study it was found that the most common approaches to interpretation of the concept of «costs» is the disclosure of its essence from the standpoints of economic theory and accounting; concepts of «control» and «internal control» – from the standpoints of functional, systemic and process approaches. The authors’ own definition of the synthesis concept of «internal control of costs» has been proposed, which suggests understanding it as the system of control measures, observations and procedures aimed at identifying deviations in the accounting of costs of enterprise, establishing legitimacy, validity, rationality, efficiency and economic feasibility of their implementation with a view to preventing and exclusion such deviations and unjustified losses in the future. Prospect for further researches in this direction is search of efficient forms, methods and instruments for management of costs of enterprise.

Keywords

• costs
• control
• internal control
• internal control of costs