A cost object is a term used primarily in
cost accounting
Cost accounting is defined by the Institute of Management Accountants as "a systematic set of procedures for recording and reporting measurements of the cost of manufacturing goods and performing services in the aggregate and in detail. It includ ...
to describe something to which
costs are assigned. Common examples of cost objects are product lines, geographic territories, customers, departments or anything else for which management would like to quantify cost.
The use of cost objects is common within
activity based costing
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that identifies activities in an organization and assigns the cost of each activity to all products and services according to the actual consumption by each. Therefore, this model assigns more in ...
and
Grenzplankostenrechnung systems.
See also
*
Cost centre (business)
References
Costs
Management accounting
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