International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics (Feb 2017)

Examining the Disadvantages of Activity Based Costing (ABC) System and Introducing the Modern (Behavior Based Costing) (BBC) System

  • Saeid Bazrafshan,
  • Behnam Karamshahi

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 2
pp. 163 – 177

Abstract

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The main objective of this study is to investigate the defects and problems of the ABC system and to offer a modern costing method called BBC system that is free from ABC problems. In the present study, 20 of the most important shortcomings of the ABC system based on previous research are listed. BBC system uses several techniques in order to solve these problems. First, instead of classification of overhead costs based on activity, it separates them based on their behavior (fixed, variable and semi-variable). Then for accumulation of costs, it uses a number of files (large pools) and folders (small pools) whose number depends on the diversity of products. Then in order to enhance the accuracy of the allocation, instead of using univariate driver, it uses multivariate driver. Because of solving 12 shortcomings of the ABC system entirely and seven shortcomings partially, BBC system is considered as a superior system compared with ABC.

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