THE COSTING METHODS: ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND THIS APPLICABILITY IN VARIOUS TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS PRESENTED IN LITERATURE

Abstract

The costing methods are important tools for the generation of relevant information for decision making. This fact highlights the importance of using costing methods compatible with the objectives and characteristics of organizations. The objective of this article is to identify which costing methods are mostly used in the national literature, more specifically in the Brazilian Congress of costs, highlighting applications in various types of organizations in the period 2005 to 2010. Therefore, this research is applied, qualitative and quantitative, descriptive, explanatory, field research, and bibliographic survey. The results show that the costing methods most used (variable costing, activity based costing and absorption costing versus variable) are applied in various types of organizations, whether commercial, industrial, services, or public or private. Each article, or better, each author defends his method as the best to determine the costs of goods and services, or to obtain certain types of information. It is noteworthy that none of the methods is perfect and solve all the problems of organizations. Even the absorption costing, it has advantages such as meet the Income Tax legislation, allocate costs both direct and indirect costs and be less costly to implement. However, choosing the most suitable method must take into consideration the type of organization and type of information that seeks to get. Moreover, managers who are in possession of the information generated by the method applied, whether traditional or conventional hybrid, decide on the actions to be taken.