Page 7 - P1 Integrated Workbook STUDENT 2018 - Copy

Traditional costing

The purpose of costing

There are a number of reasons why an organisation needs to know the cost of
producing its product or providing its service.

 inventory valuation – inventory for products produced internally needs to be
valued at production cost rather than simply purchase price.

 profit calculation – the cost of the product will be compared to the price in
order to determine the profit per unit and subsequently the profit for the period.

 pricing – some organisations will use cost based pricing, whilst most
organisations will aim to ensure that the product is priced above its cost.

 decision making – understanding the cost will aid decisions such as whether
to accept a large, one-off sales contract at a reduced selling price.

However, there are many different ways to determine the cost of production, and
each method will have a different impact of each of the above.

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