Cost Accounting Interview Preparation Guide

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This can be described as the process of accumulating, measuring, analyzing, interpreting and reporting cost information that is both useful and relevant to the internal and external stakeholders of a business entity. External stakeholders are those who have a vested financial interest in a business or company. For example banks (loans), financial houses (mortgages), investors (investments), etc. Internal stakeholders are the business or company directors, managers, division heads, etc.

One of the many benefits of cost accounting is that it turns data into information, knowledge and wisdom about a business entity’s operations that is useful for:

► measuring performance
► reducing or managing costs
► determining the fees or prices for goods and services
► deciding to authorize, modify or discontinue a program or activity

The difference between "cost accounting" and "financial accounting are terms refer to the accounting techniques used internally by a company's management to determine the costs of running the business and help in decision making. For example, reports that compare budgeted to actual expenses are commonly used to monitor the successful management of a specific department or store within a larger enterprise.

Cost sheet is a statement of cost for a product for given period of time.

Variable costs are those that are directly proportionate with the quantity of production and or directly associated with the service.

Variable costs are the costs that change depending on how many products you sell or how many services you provide.

The level of activity at which total revenues equal total costs.

A point at which there is no profit and no loss.

Referring any books or questions wont give any experience, here experience, i think means, the level or the grade of Cost A/C works done etc.

The difference between expenses and expenditure. Expense is the outflow from a profit oriented organization while expenditure is the outflow from non-profit organization.

Headcount or number of pc's per cost center.

Marginal Cost (MC):
The marginal cost of an additional unit of output is the cost of the additional inputs needed to produce that output. More formally, the marginal cost is the derivative of total production costs with respect to the level of output.

Marginal cost and average cost can differ greatly. For example, suppose it costs $1000 to produce 100 units and $1020 to produce 101 units. The average cost per unit is $10, but the marginal cost of the 101st unit is $20

The EconModel applications Perfect Competition and Monopoly emphasize the roles of average cost and marginal cost curves. The short movie Derive a Supply Curve (40 seconds) shows an excerpt from the Perfect Competition presentation that derives a supply curve from profit maximizing behavior and a marginal cost curve.

Cost sheet consists of the direct and indirect expenses incurred in producing a given product and classifying the expenses incurred according to office, administration, selling and distribution overheads.