DIPLOMA IN ISLAMIC BANKING EXAMINATION Management Accounting & Financial Management (204) April-2017 Class-1 K S Omar Faruk ACA1 Absorption Costing Absorption costing is a method for accumulating fixed and variable costs associated with the production process and apportioning them to individual products. Thus, a product may absorb a broad range of costs. These costs are not recognized as expenses in the month when an entity pays for them. Instead, they remain in inventory as an asset until such time as the inventory is sold; at that point, they are charged to cost of goods sold. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) require that an entity use absorption costing to record the value of inventory in its financial statements. Absorption Costing Components The key costs assigned to products under an absorption costing system are:
Direct materials. Those materials that are included in a finished product.
Direct labor. The factory labor costs required to construct a product.
Variable manufacturing overhead. The costs to operate a manufacturing facility, which vary with production volume. Examples are supplies and electricity for production equipment.
Fixed manufacturing overhead. The costs to operate a manufacturing facility, which do not vary with production volume. Examples are rent and insurance. It is possible to use activity-based costing (ABC) to allocate overhead costs for inventory valuation purposes under the absorption costing methodology. However, ABC is a timeconsuming and expensive system to implement and maintain, and so is not very costeffective when all you want to do is allocate inventory to be in accordance with GAAP or IFRS. You should charge sales and administrative costs to expense in the period incurred; do not assign them to inventory, since these items are not related to goods produced, but rather to the period in which they were incurred. Absorption Costing Steps The steps required to complete a periodic assignment of costs to produced goods is: 1. Assign costs to cost pools. This is comprised of a standard set of accounts that are always included in cost pools, and which should rarely be changed.
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Member, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh Vice President, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd. Member, Technical & Research Committee (Standing Committee), ICAB Professional Development Committee, ICAB Review Committee for Published Accounts & Reports, ICAB Guest Speaker, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh Former; Company Secretary, Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd. Director (Finance and Accounts), the Dhaka Jute Mills Ltd. Email: ksfaruk@gmail.com