Managers must also understand the meaning of opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the benefit given up or sacrificed when one alternative is chosen over another. For example, a firm may invest $100,000 in inventory for a year instead of in vesting the capital in a productive investment that would yield a 12 percent rate of return. The opportunity cost of the capital tied up in inventory is $12,000 (0.12 x $100,000) and is part of the cost of carrying the inventory.
Costs are incurred to produce future benefits. Ina profit-making firm, Future benefits usually mean revenues. As cists are used up in the production of revenues, they are said to expire. Expired costs are called expenses. In each period, expense are deducted from revenues in the income statement to determine the period’s profit. For a company to remain in business, revenues must consistently exceed expenses; moreover, the income earned must be large enough to satisfy the owners so that sufficient income is earned. Furthermore, lowering prices increases customer value by lowering customer sacrifice, and the ability to lower prices is connected to the ability to lower costs. Hence, managers need to know cost and trends in cost. Usually, however, Knowing cost really means knowing what something or some object costs. Assigning costs to determine the cost of this object is therefore critical in providing this information to managers.