Cost Department.
On the basis of the labor distribution summary or the time tickets, the cost department records direct labor cost on job cost sheets or departmental production reports, and records indirect labor cost on detailed departmental overhead records. In some companies, cost accounting is decentralized, with cost clerks stationed in producing departments to assist in accumulating and classifying labor costs, using time tickets to compute production costs by job, department, operation, or product type. In other companies, the cost department is highly centralized and may have no involvement in timekeeping or payroll preparation.