Costing systems helps companies determine the cost of a product related to the revenue it generates. Two common costing systems used in business are traditional costing and activity- based costing. Traditional costing assigns manufacturing overhead based on the volume of a cost driver, such as the amount of direct labor hours needed to produce an item. A cost driver is a factor that causes cost to incur, such as machine hours, direct labor hours and direct material hours. Activity-based costing allocated the costs of manufacturing a product according to the activities needed to produce the item. Managers should understand the advantages and disadvantages of both systems to meet the needs of their business.