Inventoriable costs are all costs of a product that are considered as assets in the balance sheet
when they are incurred and that become cost of goods sold only when the product is sold. For
manufacturing-sector companies, all manufacturing costs are inventoriable costs. Consider
again BMW and its X5 SUV. Costs of direct materials issued to production (from direct material
inventory), direct manufacturing labor costs, and manufacturing overhead costs create
new assets, starting as work in process and becoming finished goods (the X5s). Hence manufacturing
costs are included in work-in-process inventory and in finished goods inventory
(they are “inventoried”) to accumulate the costs of creating these assets. When the X5s are
sold, the cost of manufacturing them is matched against the revenues from the sale. The cost
of goods sold includes all manufacturing costs (direct materials, direct manufacturing labor,
and manufacturing overhead costs) incurred to produce them. The X5s may be sold during a
different accounting period than the period in which they were manufactured. Thus, inventorying
manufacturing costs in the balance sheet during the accounting period when goods
are manufactured and expensing the manufacturing costs when the goods are sold and revenues
are recognized in a later income statement achieves matching of revenues and expenses