Activity-based Costing and Management

Accounting systems are undergoing fundamental changes in corporate managements' attempts to adjust to the rapidly changing technological and business environments. This is primarily reflected in the form of modern management accounting systems, such as activity-based costing and management systems. This book provides an overview of activity-based costing (ABC) concepts and principles. All relevant aspects of ABC are explained as well as the relationship with other systems such as quality management, productivity management and capacity management, which form the nucleus of an activity-based maangement (ABM) system. Particular emphasis is also placed on process analysis and the important role that this can play in reconstructing the activities of a business enterprise. The concept of the value chain is applied to an accounting model - illustrating how all the relevant aspects could be used to develop a comprehensive performance measurment model. Various hints and considerations are given for the practical implementation of an ABM system.
The current move in accounting systems to reflect on outputs and not only imputs, on customers and markets and not only on production and products, is also clearly illustrated.