From clean toilets to working computers, your company incurs many costs that it cannot assign to one particular "cost object" -- a product, project, department or service. You must nonetheless cover ...

Manufacturing overhead is applied to products on the basis of a predetermined overhead rate. This rate is calculated as the total estimated overhead for the period divided by the estimated activity ...

Welcome back to the Cost Corner, where we provide practical insight into the complex cost and pricing requirements that apply to Government contractors. This is the second article in a multi-part ...

Every business leader should probably have at least a rudimentary understanding of accounting. It’s not about becoming an accountant; it’s just about knowing enough not to get fooled or fool yourself.

Implementation of full cost accounting in FY 2004 created problems for NASA’s research Centers when a complex allocation of overhead costs disproportionately inflated their costs compared to the ...

Most conversations about overhead turn out to be complicated and emotional. People are confused about how it is defined, how it is calculated, and above all, how it is recovered. Everyone does it ...

As a former corporate controller and senior vice president of operations, I have experienced both sides of allocated overhead. I have learned manufacturing executives have more control over costs ...

Last month, we provided an article on overhead calculation and rate. That was Overhead Rates 101. In this month’s guest column, Ken Hedlund, Somerset CPAs (somersetcpas.com), introduces a more ...

The most common mistake is allocating overhead as a percentage of job cost. This practice is so universal that we rarely meet a contractor who veers from it. For example, assume a painting contractor ...