Accounting › Planning & Control
Product Costing
What a thing should cost, what it did cost, and why those two numbers differ — split six ways, because each names a different department.
In Accounting → Planning & Control · 13 screens
| Screen | Kind | What it is | Columns | Fields | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost Estimates | Read-only list | Explode the bill of material, price it, walk the routing, apply the overhead. Released, the estimate becomes the standard — and a standard that can be edited makes every variance since January a fiction. | 13 | 0 | 2 |
| Cost Itemisation | Read-only list | One row per input, at whatever level of the bill of material it came from — which is what makes "why does this cost 42.60" answerable rather than merely assertable. | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Costing Runs | List | Select, cost, mark, release. Marking and releasing are separate on purpose: a company marks in December and releases on 1 January. | 10 | 6 | 0 |
| Variance Analysis | Read-only list | Six categories, because each names a different department: price is purchasing, quantity is production, rate is the cost center, efficiency is the routing. A single "manufacturing variance" tells nobody what to do. | 11 | 0 | 1 |
| Material Ledger | Read-only list | What an item ACTUALLY cost in a period, once every purchase price difference and production variance is rolled back in. The only honest answer to "what did the goods we sold in March cost us". | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Costing Variants | List | Where the material price comes from. The same bill of material costed at standard, moving average and last purchase price gives three different answers and all three are defensible. | 7 | 12 | 0 |
| Overhead Rules | List | How indirect cost is added on top. Crude, universal, and exactly what activity-based costing was invented to replace — which is why both are supported. | 9 | 17 | 0 |
| Cost Elements | List | A GL account seen from the controlling side. A SECONDARY element exists only inside controlling — posting one to a real expense account would double the company’s costs, so the database refuses it. | 7 | 9 | 0 |
| Cost Components | List | A cost of 42.60 is not analysable. Split into material, labour, machine, setup and overhead it tells a plant manager which of the five to attack. | 7 | 9 | 0 |
| Activity Types | List | What a cost center provides: machine hours, labour hours, setup, inspection. How a cost center’s cost reaches a product, and the same machinery activity-based costing uses. | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Activity Rates | List | What one hour of that activity costs, from that cost center. The PLANNED rate charges orders all year; the ACTUAL rate is only knowable afterwards, and the difference is what actual costing settles. | 11 | 17 | 0 |
| Activity Postings | List | One consumption: this order used 4.2 machine hours from that cost center on that day. The row that carries cost from a cost center to a product. | 9 | 11 | 0 |
| Cost Center Absorption | Read-only list | What a cost center cost, what it charged out, and what it failed to absorb. Under-absorption is idle capacity, and it is the number a plant manager is actually held to. | 12 | 0 | 0 |