TARGET COSTING AND LIFECYCLE COSTING
Ken Garrett explains target costing and lifecycle costing, and gives examples as to how and when you would use these costing techniques
Target costing and lifecycle costing can be regarded as relatively modern advances in management accounting, so it is worth first looking at the approach taken by conventional costing.
Typically, conventional costing attempts to work out the cost of producing an item incorporating the costs of resources that are currently used or consumed. Therefore, for each unit made the classical variable costs of material, direct labour and variable overheads are included (the total of these is the marginal cost of production), together with a share of the fixed production costs. The fixed production costs can be included using a conventional overhead absorption rate or they can be accounted for using activity-based costing (ABC). ABC is more complex but almost certainly more accurate. However, whether conventional overhead treatment or ABC is used the overheads incorporated are usually based on the budgeted overheads for the current period.
Once the total absorption cost of units has been calculated, a mark-up (or gross profit percentage) is used to determine the selling price and the profit per unit. The mark-up is chosen so that if the budgeted sales are achieved, the organisation should make a profit.