Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1921
Abstract
In this paper I wish to emphasize what seems to me the most important aspect of cost control: the human side. It is absolutely essential that there be constant cooperation between the cost department and the operating departments if the important business of obtaining dependable cost figures is to be carried on effectively. What is control of cost accounting? Cost accounts are not under control when the cost figures obtained are merely balanced, or matched, in their money totals, with the control, or aggregate accounts in the main books of account. The figures must also be based upon accurate records of production, of the labor spent on each separate lot of product, of the use of equipment and supplies, and upon such other information, regarding the performance of the work done in the factory, as may be necessary in order to record and fully explain the production costs. To say that cost accounts are under control merely because the wages charged to jobs or processes agree in money total with the factory payroll, because the total value of material and supplies drawn from the stock rooms appears to have been charged out to the various jobs or processes going on, and because all other productive expenditures have been somewhere charged into the manufacturing accounts, is as absurd as it would be to consider an adding machine list of balances in a ledger as a satisfactory and complete trial balance.
Relational Format
pamphlet
Series Title
Official Publications of the National Association of Cost Accountants, 1921 (May), Vol. II, no. 12
Recommended Citation
Robinson, John W., "Cooperation and Cost control" (1921). Publications of Accounting Associations, Societies, and Institutes. 129.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/acct_inst/129