Cost Accounting For Dummies

Learn to: Master important cost accounting concepts Apply your skills with real-world examples Score your highest in a cost accounting course Get a grip on cost accounting? Easy. Cost Accounting For Dummies tracks to a typical cost accounting course and provides in-depth explanations and reviews of the essential concepts you'll encounter in your studies: how to define costs as direct materials, direct labor, fixed overhead, variable overhead, or period costs; how to use allocation methodology to assign costs to products and services; how to evaluate the need for capital expenditures; how to design a budget model that forecasts changes in costs based on expected activity levels; and more. Cost Accounting 101 — find out how cost accounting relates to other areas of accounting, which types of costs are most important, and step-by-step explanations on cost-volume-profit and activity-based costing Plan for it — take a stroll through the budgeting process, analyze the differences between your budget and actual results using variances, and get the lowdown on overhead costs Make good decisions — get the scoop on cost drivers — and how they determine product price — to make good decisions in running a business Take action — discover how to allocate costs, analyze business profitability, use shared resources, and more Open the book and find: Cost accounting terms and their purposes How to use cost-volume-profit analysis The hows and whats of activity-based costing Why budgeting is important The concept of relevance in cost accounting Considerations for process costing How to search for measures of quality

Introduction 1 Part I: Understanding the Fundamentals of Costs  7 Chapter 1: So You Want to Know about Cost Accounting 9 Chapter 2: Brushing Up on Cost Accounting Basics 19 Chapter 3: Using Cost–Volume–Profi t Analysis to Plan Your Business Results 31 Chapter 4: Estimating Costs with Job Costing 47 Chapter 5: More Activity, More Cost: Activity–Based Costing 65 Part II: Planning and Control  81 Chapter 6: What’s the Plan, Stan? Budgeting for a Better Bottom Line 83 Chapter 7: Constant Change: Variance Analysis 103 Chapter 8: Focusing on Overhead Costs125 Chapter 9: What’s on the Shelf? Inventory Costing 139 Part III: Making Decisions  159 Chapter 10: Cost Drivers and Cost Estimation Methods 161 Chapter 11: Making Smart Business Decisions with Relevant Information 173 Chapter 12: Making Smart Pricing Decisions: Figuring Total Costs 193 Part IV: Allocating Costs and Resources  211 Chapter 13: Analysis Methods to Improve Profitability 213 Chapter 14: Behind the Scenes: Accounting for Support Costs and Common Costs 231 Chapter 15: Joint Costs, Separable Costs, and Using Up the Leftovers 255 Chapter 16: Tracing Similar Products with Process Costing 271 Part V: Considering Quality Issues  293 Chapter 17: What a Waste! Getting the Most from Spoilage, Scrap, and Reworked Products 295 Chapter 18: Making Smart Ordering Decisions 317 Chapter 19: Quality: Building a Better Mousetrap 337 Part VI: The Part of Tens  355 Chapter 20: Ten Common Costing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them 357 Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Increase Profits Using Costing 363 Index 367

Ken Boyd is a former CPA with over 27 years of experience in accounting, education, and financial services. Ken is the owner of St. Louis Test Preparation (www.stltest.net). He provides online tutoring in accounting and finance to both undergraduate and graduate students.