Last Updated on March 11, 2024 by admin
Costs of Internal Tasks
In the glossary Internal Tasks are defined as “all work performed in the cost centers that is neither directly caused by the quantity of products manufactured and sold nor requested by other cost centers directly depending on their own output”. The post “Internal tasks” in the Management Control blog lists the types of tasks that count as Internal tasks.
The fulfillment of these tasks leads to readiness to perform costs (fixed costs). They are incurred so that production and sales can take place at all. The fixed costs are incurred in the cost centers, but cannot be allocated to products and services according to cause. Readiness to perform costs are planned and approved by the managers. Consequently, the cost center managers and their superiors are also responsible for their amount.
Cost planning for Internal tasks
Cost center budgets must be prepared so that the costs of internal tasks can be assessed and approved for implementation. This requires the following considerations:
1. Time requirements, time consumption of cost center employees per internal task and year, planned services for project orders, time required for cost center management and further training, training.
2. Costs and usage licenses to be paid externally, per internal task or cost center
3. Services from other companies, external costs to fulfill the internal task
4. Services from other cost centers, genuine internal services, e.g. from energy, maintenance, repair, laboratory, transport or IT cost centers (ordered and measurable).
5. Investments and resulting imputed depreciation, acquisition of machinery, equipment, hardware and software; management decision for the planned useful life, calculation of annual imputed depreciation.
The procedure to plan costs for internal tasks is shown in detail in the post “Planning the costs of the central IT-department”.