The methods of costing are as follows:
1. Job Costing: The job costing methods are applicable where the unit of manufacture is one and complete in itself. They include printers, job foundries, tool manufactures, and contractors, etc. the following methods are included in Job Costing:
2. Contract Costing: This method if applied in undertakings erecting buildings or carrying out constructional works, e.g., House buildings, ship building, Civil Engineering contracts. Here the cost unit is one and completed in itself. The cost unit is a contract which may continue for over more than a year. It is also known as the Terminal Costing, since the works are to be completed within a specified period as per terms of contract or agreement executed by the contractor and contractee.
3. Batch Costing: In this method, a batch of similar or identical products is treated as a job. Here the unit of cost is a batch of group of products, costs are collected and analyzed according to batch numbers and the costs are ascertained batch wise. This method is applied in pharmaceutical industries where medicines or injections are manufactures batch wise or in general engineering factories producing components in convenient batches.
4. Process Costing: Process costing method is applicable to those industries manufacturing an number of units of output requiring processing. Here an article has to undergo two or more processes for reaching the stage of finished goods and succeeding process till completion.
5. Unit costing: This method is also known as single or output costing. The objective of this method is to ascertain the total cost as well as the cost per unit. A cost sheet is prepared taking into account the cost of material, labour and overheads, Unit costing is applicable in the case of mines, oil drilling units, cement works, brick works and units manufacturing cycles, radios, washing machines etc.
6. Operating costing: This method is followed by industries which render services. To ascertain the cost of such services, composite units like passenger kilometers and tone kilometers are used for ascertaining costs. For example, in the case of a bus company, operating costing indicates the cost of carrying a passenger per kilometer.
7. Operation costing: This is a more detailed application of process costing. It involves costing by every operation. This method is used where there is mass production of repetitive nature involving a number of operations. The main purpose of this method is to ascertain the cost of each operation.
8. Multiple Costing: It is also known as composite costing. It refers to a combination of two or more of the above methods of costing. It is adopted in industries where several parts are produced separately and assembled to a single product.