1. Activity-Based Costing: A Tool to Aid Decision Making
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Activity-Based Costing: A Tool to Aid Decision Making
Chapter Eight
This chapter introduces students to activity-based costing (ABC), which is a tool that has been embraced by a wide variety of service, manufacturing, and non-profit organizations.

2. Activity Based Costing (ABC)
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Activity Based Costing (ABC)
ABC is a
good supplement to our traditional cost system
ABC is designed to provide managers with cost information for strategic and other decisions that potentially affect capacity and therefore affect fixed as well as variable costs.
I agree!
ABC is a costing method that is designed to provide managers with cost information for strategic and other decisions that potentially affect capacity and therefore “fixed” as well as variable costs. It is ordinarily used as a supplement to, rather than as a replacement for, the company’s usual costing system.

3. 8-3
Learning Objective 1
Understand activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system.
Learning objective number 1 is to understand activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system.

4. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
ABC differs from traditional cost accounting in three ways.
Manufacturing costs
Nonmanufacturing costs
ABC differs from traditional cost accounting in three ways. The first is:
 Nonmanufacturing as well as manufacturing costs may be assigned to products, but only on a cause-and-effect basis. For example, ABC systems can assign sales commissions, shipping costs, and warranty repair costs to specific products.
Traditional product costing
ABC product costing
 ABC assigns both types of costs to products.

5. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
ABC differs from traditional cost accounting in three ways.
Manufacturing costs
Nonmanufacturing costs
Most, but not all
Some
All
  Some manufacturing costs may be excluded from product costs. This is because ABC only assigns a cost to a product if decisions concerning that product will cause changes in the cost. ABC excludes two types of costs from product costs:
Organization-sustaining costs (which will be formally defined later); and
The costs of unused or idle capacity.
Traditional product costing
ABC product costing
ABC does not assign all manufacturing costs to products.

6. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
ABC differs from traditional cost accounting in three ways.
Activity–Based
Costing
Level of complexity
Departmental
Overhead
Rates
 Numerous overhead cost pools are used, each of which is allocated to products and other cost objects using its own unique measure of activity. ABC cost pools are created to correspond to the activities performed in an organization that cause the consumption of overhead resources. Therefore, the total number of ABC cost pools will definitely exceed one (as in the plantwide approach) and it is likely to exceed the number of departments within a company (as in the departmental approach), since more than one activity is often performed within each department.
Plantwide
Overhead
Rate
Number of cost pools
ABC uses more cost pools.

7. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
ABC differs from traditional cost accounting in three ways.
Each ABC cost pool has its own unique measure of activity.
Traditional cost systems usually rely on volume measures such as direct labor hours and/or machine hours to allocate all overhead costs to products.
Each ABC cost pool has its own unique measure of activity. On the contrary, traditional cost systems usually rely on direct labor hours and/or machine hours to allocate all overhead costs to products.
Direct labor and machine hours work correctly when changes in the quantity of the base are correlated with changes in the overhead costs being assigned using the base.
Relying exclusively on these bases to assign overhead costs to products has come under increased scrutiny since, on an economy-wide basis, direct labor and overhead costs have been moving in opposite directions and the variety of products produced by companies has increased.
ABC uses more cost pools.

8. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
Activity
An event that causes the consumption of overhead resources.
Activity Cost Pool
A “cost bucket” in which costs related to a particular activity measure are accumulated. $
Part I.
An activity is any event causes the consumption of overhead resources.
Part II.
An activity cost pool is a “bucket” in which costs are accumulated that relate to a single activity measure in an ABC system.

9. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
The term cost driver is also used to refer to an activity measure.
Activity Measure
An allocation base in an activity-based costing system.
An activity measure is an allocation base in an activity-based costing system. The term cost driver is also used to refer to an activity measure. The two most common types of activity measures are shown on the next slide.

10. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
Two common types of activity measures:
Simple count of the number of times an activity occurs.
Transaction driver
A measure of the amount of time needed for an activity.
Duration driver
Two types of activities measures include:
 Transaction drivers – simple counts of the number of times that an activity occurs such as the number of bills sent out to customers.
 Duration drivers — measures of the amount of time needed to perform an activity such as the time spent preparing individual bills for customers.

11. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
ABC defines five levels of activity that largely do not relate to the volume of units produced.
Traditional cost systems rely exclusively on allocation bases that are driven by the volume of production. ABC defines five levels of activity that largely do not relate to the volume of units produced.
Traditional cost systems usually rely on volume measures such as direct labor hours and/or machine hours to allocate all overhead costs to products.

12. How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
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How Costs are Treated Under Activity–Based Costing
Manufacturing companies typically combine their activities into five classifications.
Unit-Level
Activity
Batch-Level
Product-Level
Customer-Level
Organization- sustaining
 Unit-level activities are performed each time a unit is produced. For example, providing power to run processing equipment would be a unit-level activity.
 Batch-level activities are performed each time a batch is handled or processed, regardless of how many units are in the batch. For example, setting up equipment and shipping customer orders are batch-level activities.
 Product-level activities relate to specific products and must be carried out regardless of how many batches are run or units produced and sold. For example, designing or advertising a product would be product-level activities.
 Customer-level activities relate to specific customers and are not tied to any specific product. For example, sales calls and catalog mailings would be customer-level activities.
 Organization-sustaining activities are carried out regardless of which customers are served, which products are produced, how many batches are run, or how many units are made. For example, heating a factory and cleaning executive offices are organization-sustaining activities.

13. Characteristics of Successful ABC Implementations
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Characteristics of Successful ABC Implementations
Strong top management support
Link to evaluations and rewards
Cross-functional involvement
There should be strong top management support. Without leadership from top management, some managers may not see any reason to change. Without top management support, the ABC implementation will be seen as unimportant.
There should be cross-functional involvement Since ABC affects people across departments, it should involve these people and be fully supported by them. If the accounting department alone attempts to impose ABC on others, skepticism and resistance are inevitable. A well designed ABC system requires intimate knowledge of many parts of an organization. This knowledge can only be learned from employees familiar with the various parts of an organization’s operations.
ABC data should be linked to how people are evaluated and rewarded. If traditional non-ABC data continues to be used to evaluate employee performance, it sends the signal that ABC data is unimportant and can even be ignored.

14. Classic Brass – An ABC Example
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Classic Brass – An ABC Example
Classic Brass makes two product lines for luxury yachts—standard stanchions and custom compass housings. The company has reported its first loss ever of $1,250 as shown on the income statement.
Manufacturing overhead is allocated to products using a single plantwide overhead rate based on machine hours.

15. Define Activities, Activity Cost Pools, and Activity Measures
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Define Activities, Activity Cost Pools, and Activity Measures
At Classic Brass, the ABC team, selected the following activity cost pools and activity measures:
The first step in implementing ABC is to define activities, activity cost pools, and activity measures. The activities are often identified and defined by interviewing the employees that work in the respective overhead departments. The lengthy list of activities that emerges from this process is usually reduced to a handful by combining similar activities.
Classic Brass selected the following five activity cost pools and corresponding activity measures:
Activity Cost Pool Activity Measure
Customer orders Number of customer orders
Product design Number of product designs
Order size Machine-hours
Customer relations Number of active customers
Other Not applicable

16. Define Activities, Activity Cost Pools, and Activity Measures
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Define Activities, Activity Cost Pools, and Activity Measures
Customer Orders - assigned all costs of resources that are consumed by taking and processing customer orders.
Product Designs - assigned all costs of resources consumed by designing products.
Order Size - assigned all costs of resources consumed as a consequence of the number of units produced.
Customer Relations – assigned all costs associated with maintaining relations with customers.
Other – assigned all overhead costs that are not associated with the other cost pools.
The definition for each of the activity cost pools is:
Customer Orders - assigned all costs of resources that are consumed by taking and processing customer orders.
Product Designs - assigned all costs of resources consumed by designing products.
Order Size - assigned all costs of resources consumed as a consequence of the number of units produced.
Customer Relations – assigned all costs associated with maintaining relations with customers.
Other – assigned all overhead costs that are not associated with the other cost pools.

17. Assign costs to cost pools using a first-stage allocation.
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Learning Objective 2
Assign costs to cost pools using a first-stage allocation.
Learning objective number 2 is to assign costs to cost pools using a first-stage allocation.

18. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
The second step in implementing ABC is to assign overhead costs to activity cost pools. This is also called first-stage allocation.
Classic Brass’ annual overhead costs (both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing) that it intends to assign to its activity cost pools are as shown. Notice:
The total costs for the Production Department ($1,000,000) equal the total manufacturing overhead costs shown in Classic Brass’ income statement.
The total costs for the General Administrative and Marketing Departments ($810,000) equal the marketing and general administrative expenses shown in Classic Brass’ income statement.

19. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
Three costs included in Classic Brass’ income statement—direct materials, direct labor, and shipping—are excluded from this slide because Classic Brass’ existing cost system can directly trace these costs to products or customer orders.
Direct materials, direct labor, and shipping are excluded because Classic Brass’ existing cost system can directly trace these costs to products or customer orders.

20. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
At Classic Brass the following distribution of resource consumption across activity cost pools is determined.
Classic Brass’ cross-functional interviews resulted in resource allocations as shown. Notice for example:
The indirect factory workers allocated 25% of their time to the customer orders activity, 40% of their time to the product design activity, 20% of their time to the order size activity, 10% of their time to customer relations, and 5% of their time to the “other” activity.
100% of the factory building lease is allocated to the “other” activity. Since Classic Brass has a single production facility that it does not plan to contract or expand, the lease cost is an unavoidable organization-sustaining cost.

21. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
Once the percentage allocations have been determined, it is a simple matter to assign costs to activity cost pools. For example, the indirect factory wages assigned to the customer orders activity ($125,000) was computed by multiplying the total amount of indirect factory wages ($500,000) by the percentage of time that indirect factory workers spent on this activity (25%).
Indirect factory wages $500,000
Percent consumed by customer orders %
$125,000

22. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
As another example, the factory equipment depreciation assigned to the customer orders activity ($60,000) was computed by multiplying the total amount of factory equipment depreciation ($300,000) by the percentage of time that the factory equipment was used to support this activity (20%).
Factory equipment depreciation $300,000
Percent consumed by customer orders %
$ 60,000

23. Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
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Assign Overhead Costs to Activity Cost Pools
The completed grid of first-stage allocations is shown on your screen.

24. Compute activity rates for cost pools.
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Learning Objective 3
Compute activity rates for cost pools.
Learning objective number 3 is to compute activity rates for cost pools.

25. Calculate Activity Rates
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Calculate Activity Rates
The ABC team determines that Classic Brass will have these total activities for each activity cost pool . . .
1,000 customer orders,
400 new designs,
20,000 machine-hours,
250 customer relations activities.
The Classic Brass ABC team determined activity levels for each activity:
1,000 customer orders,
400 new designs,
20,000 machine-hours,
250 customer relations activities.
This information enabled the team to compute ABC rates for each activity by dividing the total cost in each activity cost pool by the respective quantity of the activity measure.
Now the team can compute the individual activity rates by dividing the total cost for each activity by the total activity levels.

26. Calculate Activity Rates
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Calculate Activity Rates
The activity rate for each cost pool is computed by dividing the total cost for an activity cost pool by the total activity for that pool. For example, the customer orders activity rate is $320 per order. Importantly, this is an average figure.
Notice, the “other” cost pool does not have an activity rate. This is because these organization-sustaining costs will not be assigned to customer orders.

27. Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
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Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
Direct
Materials
Direct
Labor
Shipping
Costs
Overhead Costs
Traced
Before proceeding, let’s get a visual perspective of the Classic Brass ABC system. The direct materials, direct labor and shipping costs were directly traced to customer orders.
Cost Objects:
Products, Customer Orders, Customers

28. Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
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Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
Direct
Materials
Direct
Labor
Shipping
Costs
Overhead Costs
First-Stage Allocation
Order
Size
Customer
Orders
Product
Design
Customer
Relations
Other
The first-stage allocation process assigned the remaining overhead costs to the five activity cost pools.
Cost Objects:
Products, Customer Orders, Customers

29. Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
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Activity-Based Costing at Classic Brass
Direct
Materials
Direct
Labor
Shipping
Costs
Overhead Costs
First-Stage Allocation
Customer Orders
Product
Design
Order Size
Customer
Relations
Other
Second-Stage Allocations
Then, activity measures were identified, activity levels were determined, and activity rates were computed for each activity as shown earlier. These rates will be used in the next step to assign overhead costs to customer orders.
$/Order
$/Design
$/MH
$/Customer
Cost Objects:
Products, Customer Orders, Customers
Unallocated

30. Assign costs to a cost object using a second-stage allocation.
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Learning Objective 4
Assign costs to a cost object using a second-stage allocation.
Learning objective number 4 is to assign costs to a cost object using a second-stage allocation.

31. Assigning Overhead to Products
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Assigning Overhead to Products
Classic Brass Information
Standard Stanchions
Requires no new design resources.
30,000 units ordered with 600 separate orders.
Each stanchion requires 35 minutes of machine time for a total of 17,500 machine-hours.
Custom Compass Housing
Requires new design resources.
400 separate orders.
400 custom designs prepared.
1,250 compass housings produced, requiring 2 machine-hours each for a total of 2,500 machine-hours.
The data needed to assign overhead costs to Classic Brass’ two products—standard stanchions and custom compass housings—are as shown. Notice:
1600 customer orders were placed for standard stanchions and 400 customer orders were placed for custom compass housings.
All 400 product designs related to custom compass housings.
Standard stanchions consumed 17,500 machine-hours and custom compass housings consumed 2,500 machine-hours.

32. Assigning Overhead to Products
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Assigning Overhead to Products
The overhead cost assignments to standard stanchions and custom compass housings are as shown. Notice:
The total overhead costs assigned to standard stanchions and custom compass housings are $524,500 and $427,500, respectively, for a total of $952,000 assigned to the two products..
The total overhead costs assigned to products ($952,000) plus the total overhead costs not assigned to products ($858,000) equal the total overhead cost of $1,810,000 from slides 18 and 23. The overhead not assigned to products consists of customer relations ($367,500) and other ($490,500).

33. Assigning Overhead to Customers
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Assigning Overhead to Customers
Let’s take a look at how Classic Brass system works for just one of the 250 customers – Windward Yachts who placed a total of three orders.
Orders
Two orders for 150 standard stanchions per order.
One order for a custom compass housing.
Windward Yachts placed three orders. Two orders were for 150 standard stanchions each, and one order was for one custom compass housing. The 300 standard stanchions required 175 machine-hours, and the custom compass housing required 2 machine-hours.
Machine-hours
The 300 standard stanchions required 175 machine-hours.
The custom compass housing required 2 machine hours.

34. Assigning Overhead to Customers
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Assigning Overhead to Customers
The total overhead cost assigned to Windward Yachts ($6,423) is calculated as shown.

35. Use activity-based costing to compute product and customer margins.
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Learning Objective 5
Use activity-based costing to compute product and customer margins.
Learning objective number 5 is to use activity-based costing to compute product and customer margins.

36. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Product Margin Calculations
The first step in computing product margins is to gather each product’s sales and direct cost data.
One of the most common management reports prepared with ABC data is product profitability (product margin) reports.
The first step in computing product margins is to gather each product’s sales and direct cost data which are assumed to be as shown.

37. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Product Margin Calculations
The second step in computing product margins is to incorporate the previously computed activity-based cost assignments pertaining to each product.
The second step is to incorporate the previously computed activity-based cost assignments pertaining to each product.

38. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Product Margin Calculations
The third step in computing product margins is to deduct each product’s direct and indirect costs from sales.
The third step is to compute product margins ($906,250 for standard stanchions and a loss of $49,500 for custom compass housings) by deducting each product’s direct and indirect costs from its sales.

39. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Product Margin Calculations
The product margins can be reconciled with the company’s net operating income as follows:
The product margins can be reconciled with the company’s net operating loss as shown.

40. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Customer Profitability Analysis The first step in computing Windward Yachts’ customer margin is to gather its sales and direct cost data.
The first step in computing Windward Yachts’ customer margin is to gather its sales and direct cost data which are assumed to be as shown.

41. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Customer Profitability Analysis The second step is to incorporate Windward Yachts’ previously computed activity-based cost assignments.
The second step is to incorporate Windward Yachts’ previously computed activity-based cost assignments.

42. Prepare Management Reports
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Prepare Management Reports
Customer Profitability Analysis The third step is to compute Windward Yachts’ customer margin ($699) by deducting all its direct and indirect costs from its sales.
The third step is to compute Windward Yachts’ customer margin ($699) by deducting all its direct and indirect costs from its sales.

43. Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
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Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
The first step in computing product margins is to gather each product’s sales and direct cost data.
The first step is to gather each product’s sales and direct cost data as shown.

44. Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
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Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
The second step in computing product margins is to compute the plantwide overhead rate.
Plantwide manufacturing
overhead rate
$1,000,000
20,000 MH
= $50 per machine-hour =
The second step is to compute the plantwide overhead rate. Notice:
The numerator is the $1,000,000 of manufacturing overhead shown earlier.
The denominator is the 20,000 machine hours used for the order size activity from the ABC system.
The plantwide overhead rate is $50 per machine-hour.

45. Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
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Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
The third step in computing product margins is allocate manufacturing overhead to each product.
17,500 hours × $50 per hour = $875,000
The third step is to allocate manufacturing overhead to each product. Notice:
17,500 machine-hours were worked on standard stanchions, so $875,000 (17, hours × $50) of manufacturing overhead is assigned to this product.
Custom compass housings are assigning the remaining $125,000 (2,500 × $50) of manufacturing overhead.

46. Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
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Product Margins Computed Using the Traditional Cost System
The fourth step is to actually compute the product margins.
The fourth step is to compute the product margins—$615,750 for standard stanchions and $258,000 for custom compass housings. Notice selling and administrative expenses are not allocated to products because they are assumed to be period expenses. The overall net loss of $1,250 reconciles with the income statement shown earlier.

47. The Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
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The Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
The traditional cost system overcosts the standard stanchions and reports a lower product margin for this product.
The traditional cost system undercosts the custom compass housings and reports a higher product margin for this product.
The changes in product margins caused by switching from the traditional cost system to the activity-based costing system are as shown. Notice:
The traditional cost system overcosts the standard stanchions, and consequently, reports an artificially low product margin for this product.
Conversely, the traditional cost system undercosts the custom compass housings, and consequently, reports an artificially high product margin for this product.

48. Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
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Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
There are three reasons why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another.
Traditional costing allocates all manufacturing overhead to products. ABC costing only assigns manufacturing overhead costs consumed by products to those products.
There are three reasons why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another.
 The traditional cost system allocates all manufacturing overhead to products. The ABC system only assigns manufacturing overhead costs consumed by products to those products. More specifically, the ABC system does not assign the manufacturing overhead costs consumed by the customer relations activity to products because these costs are caused by customers, not specific products. The ABC system does not assign the manufacturing overhead costs included in the “other” activity to products because these organization-sustaining and unused capacity costs are not caused by products.

49. Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
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Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
There are three reasons why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another.
 Traditional costing allocates all manufacturing overhead costs using a volume-related allocation base. ABC costing also uses non-volume related allocation bases.
The second reason why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another is:
 The traditional cost system allocates all manufacturing overhead costs using a volume-related allocation base (machine-hours). The ABC system uses volume related and non-volume related allocation bases to assign manufacturing overhead to products. More specifically, the traditional cost system allocates 87.5% of all manufacturing overhead to standard stanchions and 12.5% to custom compass housings. The ABC system assigns 60% and 40% of customer orders activity cost (a batch-level cost) to standard stanchions and custom compass housings, respectively. The ABC system assigns 0% and 100% of product design activity cost (a product-level cost) to standard stanchions and custom compass housings, respectively.

50. Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
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Differences Between ABC and Traditional Product Costs
There are three reasons why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another.
 Traditional costing disregards selling and administrative expenses because they are assumed to be period expenses. ABC costing directly traces shipping costs to products and includes nonmanufacturing overhead costs caused by products in the activity cost pools that are assigned to products.
The third reason why the reported product margins for the two costing systems differ from one another is:
 The traditional cost system disregards selling and administrative expenses because they are assumed to be period expenses. The ABC system directly traces shipping costs to products and includes nonmanufacturing overhead costs caused by products in the activity cost pools that are assigned to products.

51. Targeting Process Improvement
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Targeting Process Improvement
Activity-based management is used in conjunction with ABC to identify areas that would benefit from process improvements.
While the theory of constraints approach discussed in Chapter 1 is a powerful tool for targeting improvement efforts, activity rates can also provide valuable clues on where to focus improvement efforts.
Activity-based management is used in conjunction with ABC to identify areas that would benefit from process improvement. It involves focusing on activities to eliminate waste, decrease processing time, and reduce defects.
While the theory of constraints approach discussed in Chapter 1 is a powerful tool for targeting process improvement efforts, the activity rates computed in ABC can also provide valuable clues concerning where there is waste and the opportunity for improvement.
Benchmarking can be used to compare an organization’s activity rates with standards of performance that are external to the organization.
Benchmarking can be used to compare activity cost information with world-class standards of performance achieved by other organizations.

52. Activity-Based Costing and External Reporting
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Activity-Based Costing and External Reporting
Most companies do not use ABC for external reporting because . . .
External reports are less detailed than internal reports.
It may be difficult to make changes to the company’s accounting system.
ABC does not conform to GAAP.
Auditors may be suspect of the subjective allocation process based on interviews with employees.
There are four reasons why most companies do not use ABC for external reporting purposes:
 External reports are less detailed than internal reports in the sense that individual product costs are not reported. External reports only disclose cost of goods sold and ending inventory. Therefore, if some products are undercosted and others are overcosted, the errors tend to cancel each other out when the product costs are added together.
 It is often very difficult to change a company’s accounting system because it is deeply embedded within complex computer programs that have evolved over many years.
 An ABC system, such as the one described in the chapter, does not conform to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). It excluded some organization-sustaining manufacturing costs and it included some nonmanufacturing costs in its product cost calculations. These cost system design attributes do not comply with GAAP.
 Auditors are likely to be uncomfortable with cost allocations that are based upon interviews with the company’s personnel. This type of subjective data can be easily manipulated by management.

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ABC Limitations
Substantial resources required to implement and maintain.
Resistance to unfamiliar numbers and reports.
Desire to fully allocate all costs to products.
Potential misinterpretation of unfamiliar numbers.
There are five limitations of activity-based costing:                  
 Implementing an ABC system requires substantial resources. The benefits of increased cost accuracy may not outweigh the implementation costs. 
 ABC systems produce numbers, such as product margins, that are at odds with the numbers produced by traditional cost systems. Managers are not accustomed to managing their operations using these numbers; hence, ABC inevitably faces resistance. This underscores the importance of having top management support for and cross-functional involvement with the ABC implementation.
 In practice, most managers insist on fully allocating all costs to products The ABC system described in the main portion of this chapter does not conform to this preference. 
 ABC systems do not automatically identify the relevant costs for particular decisions; therefore, ABC data can be easily misinterpreted and must be used with care when making decisions. Costs assigned to products, customers, and other cost objects are only potentially relevant.
 Most organizations use ABC as a supplement to rather a replacement for their existing cost system. Maintaining two cost systems is costlier than maintaining just one system and it may cause confusion about which set of numbers is to be relied on.
Does not conform to GAAP. Two costing systems may be needed.

54. 8-54
End of Chapter 8
End of Chapter 8.