Indirect Cost

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What is Indirect Cost?

In all sorts of departments like production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is defined as the value of money that has been used up to produce something and also deliver a service.

Most businesses believe that the cost could be defined as one of the acquisitions, in which the amount of money which is expended to acquire the same is being counted as cost.

Generally, in the field of economics, the cost could be referred to as a more generalized version of the field of economics, where cost is a metric that is added up as a result of a process or maybe as a differential that could help make a decision. This cost is further broken down into direct and indirect costs.

What is an Indirect Cost?

Those costs that aren’t accountable directly to an object of cost, like that of a particular project, facility, function, or product, are being referred to as indirect costs. These kinds of costs could be either fixed or variable. Costs like administration, personnel, and security costs are classified as indirect costs.

Indirect costs aren’t related directly to production, and some of these could be overhead as well, where the overhead costs could be directly attributed to a project. Most costs that are usually being allotted indirectly are those costs that are being related to transport, administration, selling and distribution, office and security, shipping, postage, utilities, and rent.

Types of Indirect Costs

Indirect costs could be categorized further under two categories: fixed indirect costs that contain activities or costs that are fixed for a particular project or company, like that of transportation of labor in the site of work, the building of temporary roads. Others in the category could be classified as recurring indirect costs that contain activities that repeat for a particular company like record maintenance or the payment of salaries.

Additionally, indirect costs aren’t directly attributable to a cost object. Even though it may financially not be feasible, indirect costs are mostly allocated to a cost object, such as overhead. For instance, those costs that aren’t directly assignable to the end product are those that are indirect.

About Indirect Cost

Indirect costs could be variable and fixed sometimes. They are mostly not related directly or could be traced to each product unit, but it may vary considering the result of the output. Examples may be cited concerning the manufacturing industry, perhaps the electricity bill.

Also, fixed indirect cost isn’t that traceable or that there’s a direct relationship with each unit of the product, and it doesn’t show much differences output-wise like that of the salary of a nightguard.

Sometimes names like overheads, administrative costs, or facility costs are also called indirect costs. There could be a lot of variation for indirect costs that differ from industry to industry.

Most companies benefit from indirect costs that help them make a significant decision on pricing. Mostly, all the overhead costs would be added together by the accountant. Post that, it would be allocated based on per unit to compute the calculation of per product overhead. It’s mostly found out that an organization makes a profit on each unit after incorporating the overhead costs.

The foundation for the product pricing strategy is determined by this before setting the desired margin of profit. For all businesses and organizations, it’s of utmost importance to carefully evaluate the indirect labor costs and also analyze its impact on overhead costs for the smooth running of the business.