ACCOUNTING TERMS - ACCOUNTING DICTIONARY - ACCOUNTING GLOSSARY
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COST ASSIGNMENT Definition
COST ASSIGNMENT involves assigning costs of an account to the accounts that are responsible or accountable for incurring the cost. For example, the cost of issuing purchase orders is allocated to the various objects procured. The cost assignment is done through assignment paths and cost drivers. The assignment path identifies the source account (the account whose cost is being assigned "Issue Purchase Orders" in the above example) and destination accounts (the accounts to which the costs are being allocated the various cost objects procured by issuing purchase orders in the above example). The cost driver identifies the measure or rationale on the basis of which the assignment needs to be done, that is, whether the costs of issuing purchase orders need to be assigned to various cost objects evenly, based on some defined percentage values, or based on some criterion, like the number of purchase orders of each cost object issued. Defining the cost drivers and assignment paths (i.e., source and destination accounts) enable proper assignment and accounting of the various costs incurred in the organization.
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CONSTRUCT OF UTILITY THEORY is a scientific calculation that has an underlying concept of utility in that it is used to rank a series of alternatives and, in the case of a simple choice, identify the single alternative, which has higher utility, or out ranks, all other alternatives. The primary implication of this ranking or ordering of alternatives is that there is no absolute reference, zero point, for utility values. Thus, the only valuation that is important is the difference in utility between pairs of alternatives; particularly whether that difference is positive or negative. Any function that produces the same preference orderings can serve as a utility function and will give the same predictions of choice, regardless of the numerical values of the utilities assigned to individual alternatives. It also follows that utility functions, which result in the same order among alternatives, are equivalent.
COST EFFECTIVE is when a judgment is made that something is economical in terms of the goods or services received for the money spent.
