10 3 Define cost, revenue, profit and investment centres and explain why managers of each must be evaluated differently. Accounting Business and Society

The manager of a cost centre should be evaluated on how well he or she controls costs in the respective segment. Cost centre managers are expected to minimise cost for certain level of output or maximise output for a certain level of cost. A revenue centre manager has accounting for architects control over the generation of revenue but not costs. Revenue centres frequently sell products from manufacturing sub-units and have no control of the costs incurred while manufacturing. Performance reports of a revenue centre often focus on sales price variances.

Further, a large number of cost centres can be expensive for the firm and when the number of a cost centres is limited to a few only, then it may not serve its very purpose. Depending on the company, these cost centres can be different, for example production, development or sales. Services are charged to a cost centre in order to allocate them internally. The individual cost centres are usually formed according to areas of responsibility as well as spatial or functional aspects.

What Is a Profit Center and Cost Center for Balance Sheet Items?

According to the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, “Impersonal cost center consists of a location of item of equipment whereas personal cost center consists of a person or a group of persons.” When a plant or machine is taken as a unit, it is an impersonal cost center; when a person or group of persons are taken as a unit, the personal cost center is implied. Departments are subdivisions of a cost centre where costs/revenue are required to be collected and reported on separately.

(1) There is a clear-cut responsibility placed on a person who is held responsible for control of expenditure in his cost centre. Those costs may be depreciation, maintenance, power, consumable, share of rent and establishment expenses, heating and lighting etc. It represents such machines or persons which undertake the same operations. The aim is to determine the cost of each operation regardless of the location within the unit. In this post, you will come to know the fundamental differences between cost centre and profit centre. A centre for which cost is ascertained and used to control cost is Cost Center.

Profit centres

Knowing which type of cost center you are dealing with can help you better understand where the money is going and how it is being used. It can be a single work point like a machine or a set of various work points, a processing department or an entire plant. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and escalating tensions with China, American companies are actively seeking alternatives to mitigate their supply chain risks and reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing. Nearshoring, the process of relocating operations closer to home, has emerged as an explosive opportunity for American and Mexican companies to collaborate like never before.

So at the latest when a company consists of several departments and a few dozen employees, systematic cost centre accounting becomes mandatory. Without cost centre accounting, one would not be able to assign in which area of the company the respective costs were caused. Ultimately, only a figure for total costs could be determined and not a detailed breakdown. Without such details, it is impossible to adjust the company’s financial strategy in an economically sensible way. With cost centres, on the other hand, one knows exactly which department, location or product generates which costs. Cost centrecan be any department or unit if the business which is responsible only towards the costs incurred by it and it is not responsible towards generation of the revenue or the usage of the assets.

Cost Centre

Hence, the subdivision of the factory into a number of departments becomes essential. Customer service teams are one of the most common examples of cost centers because it’s their primary responsibility to ensure customer delight. These teams work closely with customers every day and make sure people are satisfied with their purchases.

• The aim is to determine the cost of each operation regardless of the location within the unit.
• Examples of cost centers are the accounting, human resources, IT, maintenance, and research & development departments.
• For example, maintenance department is a service department provides service to other cost centres which include both production cost centres and service cost centres.
• In addition, Pectus offers you the possibility of correcting any incorrectly posted transactions as part of your monthly controlling process in order to ensure ongoing data integrity.

Here are several common types of cost centers along with examples of each. Emilie is a Certified Accountant and Banker with Master’s in Business and 15 years of experience in finance and accounting from corporates, financial services firms – and fast growing start-ups. By contrast, the “process cost center is a cost center which consists of a continuous sequence of operations.”