Once an inventory of activities exists, then activity attributes are used to define activities.
Activity attributes are nonfinancial and financial information items that describe individual activities. An activity dictionary lists the activities in an organization along
with desired attributes. The attributes selected depend on the purpose being served. Examples
of activity attributes with a product costing objective include tasks that describe
the activity, types of resources consumed by the activity, amount (percentage) of time
spent on an activity by workers, cost objects that consume the activity, and a measure
of activity consumption (activity driver). Activities are the building blocks for both product
costing and continuous improvement. An activity dictionary provides crucial information
for activity-based costing as well as activity management. It is a key source of
information for building an activity-based database that is discussed later in the chapter