Product Costs Types of Costs, Examples, Materials, Labor, Overhead

Businesses use different methods of allocating costs. Once this overhead is determined, it is assigned to each unit produced.

Estimated overhead is an educated guess based on historical data, done in order to budget and plan for the coming period. Manufacturing overhead should also be a key factor in determining the selling price of your products. Overheads are an element of cost but they are a supplementary cost and cannot be directly added to a particular job. Organizations use various other types of allocation bases.

What is Manufacturing Overhead?

People who set up the manufacturing equipment to the required specifications. Based in St. Petersburg, Fla., Karen Rogers covers the financial markets for several online publications. She received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida. Hearst Newspapers participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.

They include equipment depreciation costs during manufacturing, rent of the facility, land used for inventory, and depreciation of the facility. Because manufacturing overhead is an indirect cost, accountants are faced with the task of assigning or allocating overhead costs to each of the units produced. This is a challenging task because there may be no direct relationship. For example, the property taxes and insurance on the manufacturing buildings are based on the assets’ value and not on the number of units manufactured. Yet these and other indirect costs must be allocated to the units manufactured. Based on the consumption the costs are classified as the period cost and the product cost.

Steps Needed for Proper Accounting of Factory Overheads

It is added to the cost of the final product along with the direct material and direct labor costs. Usually manufacturing overhead costs include depreciation of equipment, salary and wages paid to factory personnel and electricity used to operate the equipment.

Consists of direct material and direct labour costs. Costs that are not related to the production of goods; also called period costs.

Factory Overheads

Divide the allocation base value by the number of units produced. This provides the amount of manufacturing overhead attached to each unit of the allocation base. Financial overhead consists of purely financial costs that cannot be avoided or canceled. They include the property taxes government may charge on your manufacturing unit, manufacturing overhead consists of audit and legal fees, and insurance policies. These costs don’t frequently change, and they are allocated across the entire product inventory. The break-even analysis determines the point which the business’s revenue is equivalent to the costs required to receive that revenue. The graph on the right shows a typical break-even chart.

For example, using activity-based costing, a service-based business may allocate overhead expenses based on the activities completed within each department, such as printing or office supplies. Selling overhead relates to activities involved in marketing and selling the good or service. This can include printed materials and television commercials, as well as the commissions of sales personnel. Other categories such as research overhead, maintenance overhead, manufacturing overhead, or transportation overhead also apply. Link to overhead costs -The goal is to find an allocation base that drives overhead costs, often called a cost driver. The approach to assigning overhead costs to a job changes based upon whether the company is a manufacturer or is a service based company.

Although the general concept is identical to the example under administrative overheads, the key difference is the role of the employee. In the case of manufacturing overheads, employees would have roles such as maintenance personnel, manufacturing managers, materials management staff, and quality control staff. It would also include the set wages for janitorial staff members. Once again, the key difference lies in the nature of their respective jobs and the physical location in which their jobs are carried out. This will include company-paid business travels and arrangements. As well as refreshments, meals, and entertainment fees during company gatherings.

Bookkeeping is simplified by using a predetermined overhead rate. One rate is used to record overhead costs rather than tabulating actual overhead costs at the end of the reporting period and going back to assign the costs to jobs. Part I All raw materials, work in process, and unsold finished goods at the end of the period are shown as inventoriable costs in the asset section of the balance sheet. Part II As finished goods are sold, their costs are transferred to cost of goods sold in the income statement. Part III Selling and administrative expenses are not involved in making the product; therefore, they are treated as period costs and reported in the income statement for the period the cost is incurred. To allocate manufacturing overhead costs, an overhead rate is calculated and applied.