COSTING: Cost accounting has long been used to help managers understand the costs of running a business.

Modern cost accounting originated during the industrial revolution, when the complexities of running a large scale business led to the development of systems for recording and tracking costs to help business owners and managers make decisions. The important ways of classification of costs are:
     

By nature or element: materials, labor, expenses By functions: production, selling, distribution, administration, R&D, development, By traceability: direct and indirect By variability: fixed, variable, semi-variable By controllability: controllable, uncontrollable By normality: normal, abnormal

In modern cost accounting, the concept of recording historical costs was taken further, by allocating the company's fixed costs over a given period of time to the items produced during that period, and recording the result as the total cost of production. This allowed the full cost of products that were not sold in the period they were produced to be recorded in inventory using a variety of complex accounting methods, which was consistent with the principles of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). It also essentially enabled managers to ignore the fixed costs, and look at the results of each period in relation to the "standard cost" for any given product. COST: A cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost.

Cost Recovery: Cost recovery means recovering costs of a project or service. In addition to the costs directly associated with the project, such as staff and equipment, projects will also draw on the rest of the organization. For example, adequate finance, human resources, management, and IT systems, are also integral components of any project or service.