A STUDY ON THE ABC APPROACH IN COST MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Abstract

Activity-based costing (ABC), an alternative approach to traditional accounting, represents a costing methodology that identifies the main cost drivers, or the main activities in an organization, thus assigning the cost of the products and services according to the number of specific activities or transactions used in the development process of a product or service. This system is based on the measurement of all the activities performed within an organization and provides the companies with the opportunity to efficiently improve their activity or to reduce the costs with no quality loss for their customers. The primary aim of ABC method was to implement a logical system of additional allocation with a better information and improvement in the field of managerial policies, a real cost structure on the basis of which strategic managerial decisions could be further adopted. Under the terms of a continuous growth of fixed cost weighting, we will become more interested in the calculation system of process costing. This costs calculation method can bring on important benefits, especially for service provider companies, considering the high share of common- indirect costs (overhead), in their unit.