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 Activity-Independent and Activity-Dependent Cost Planning

Use

Activity-independent cost planning covers both primary and secondary costs, but does not refer to a specific activity type. The opposite to this is activity-dependent planning.

Activity-dependent planning of primary and secondary costs enables you to plan both fixed and variable costs. You may require this functionality if your costing system uses flexible standard costing based on marginal costs. It is also possible to carry out flexible standard costing based on full costs or marginal costs.

Standard costing based on full costs means that the fixed costs are distributed in proportion to the operating level. This could mean that portions of fixed costs are included in the prices. You can assign plan activity-independent costs to activity types using various rules, for example, using equivalence numbers or your own splitting rules (see: Plan Cost Splitting ).

Standard costing based on marginal costs means that the fixed costs included in the prices are not proportional to the operating level If you want to use prices based on full costs for your marginal costing, as well as purely proportional prices, you must assign to the cost objects the fixed costs of the sender cost centers in addition to allocating the variable costs of internal activity allocation. Because the fixed preparation costs are not proportional to the operating level, you should not allocate them in a marginal costing system based on the activity output of the sender cost centers.

Predistribution of Fixed Costs enables you to distribute the fixed costs in full to the cost centers that have planned activity input. The following prerequisites apply:

  • Within an agreed activity plan, the sender cost centers provide activity quantities because other cost centers have planned to consume them.

  • The sender cost center has not caused the fixed costs for the provision of these activities.