Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing - A Simpler and More Powerful Path to Higher Profits

In the classroom, ABC looks like a great way to manage a company’s resources. But many executives who have tried to implement ABC on a large scale in their organizations have found the approach limiting and frustrating. Why? The employee surveys that these companies used to estimate the resources required for business activities proved too time consuming and expensive. 

This book introduces time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC), an easier and more powerful approach for measuring cost and profitability that exploits the data now available from ERP systems. With TDABC, managers spend less time and money gathering and maintaining data and more time addressing the problems that TDAMC reveals—such as inefficient processes, unprofitable products and customers, and excess capacity. 

The authors show how managers can build a TDABC system by answering two fundamental questions: 

• How much does it cost to supply resources capacity for each business process in our organization? 
• How much resource capacity (time) is required to perform work for each of out company’s transactions, products, and customers? 

  Beyond illustrating the normal benefits from successful ABC implementations—such as enhancing the profitability of products and customers, managing capacity utilization, and improving process efficiencies—Kaplan and Anderson introduce innovative, new TDABC applications, including: 

• Linking strategic planning to operational budgeting 
• Enhancing the due diligence process for mergers and acquisitions 
• Supporting continuous-improvement activities such as lean management and benchmarking 
• Eliminating unnecessary complexity in supply chains 
• Optimizing staffing for key personnel 

  The book illustrates the TDABC approach with a wealth of case studies in diverse settings, based on actual implementations guided by Acorn consultants. Featured organizations include Kemps LLC, Sanac Logistics, ATB Financial, Citigroup Technology Infrastructure Division, and Jackson State University. 

  A vital new resource, Time-Driven Activity Based Costing gives you the tools and examples you need to maximize the value of your activity-based costing system.