System of uniform cost finding for paving brick manufacturers
Abstract
Two courses were open to your Cost Committee in preparing this report on Uniform Cost Finding: either to employ a cost expert to write it or to do the work itself. The expert knows more of accounting and less of the paving brick business. Your Committee knows more about the business and less about accounting. The conclusion was that the system must fit the business and therefore that the work could best be done by the Committee. The constant endeavor has been to make the system as simple as possible and yet maintain its effectiveness. Therefore several changes have been made in the method shown in the Paving Brick Institute Report of 1917. It is our hope that the whole matter has been presented in a more logical, and therefore more easily understood way. The Committee has not greatly concerned itself about extreme accounting accuracy when by so doing it felt that practicability was interfered with. Nor has it felt that, in this report, it should enter into a discussion of disputed subjects such as the method of charging expense while a plant is shut down, or distribution of general overhead by a company having several plants. Consideration of such subjects will naturally follow the general adoption of the system here given, by the companies in the business. Your Committee hopes that every Company will put the system into use. In no other way can its strength or weakness be disclosed. Such a report can at no time be regarded as complete. Experience and developments from time to time will doubtless suggest desirable improvements.