Calculating the Cost of Student Services Through Activity Based Costing Method (ABC) at the Department of Student and Cultural Affairs of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2011

Abstract

Introduction: Today, regarding the role of accurate information, especially financial information, and financial decision-making, planning and implementation of a sound costing system that can detect, identify and calculate the exact cost of the delivered services is of great importance. Our country is not an exception. The importance of applying the correct information in decision-making and the need for clarity of costs and revenue sources has received an increasing emphasis in recent years in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this study, the costs of the Department of Student and Cultural Affairs in 2011 were analyzed and total cost of services delivered to the students was calculated. The method applied in calculating was Activity Based Costing (ABC). First, each process and activity was analyzed. Then the total cost of each activity center was calculated step by step, using the right bases. Finally, the per capita cost of each activity center for the students was calculated. The calculations were carried out, using Excel software. Results: The total cost of the services delivered to the students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences was 10,551,353.64 Rials and the total cost of services delivered to the students in dormitories of Tehran University of Medical Sciences was 21,705,119.32 Rials. Conclusion: Forty percent of the cost of the services was procured by the government and the %60 of the cost was without any fund. This leads to the reduction and low quality of the services delivered to the students. So a revision of the required budget for this the procurement of the deficit is necessary.

Keywords

• cost analysis
• activity-based costing
• cost driver
• based multiplexing
• students
• university