Marginal Costing: Cost Budgeting and Cost Variance Analysis

This paper reviews traditional German cost accounting in general and its most pervasive cost accounting system, namely, marginal costing, in particular. An outline of the structure of the system is followed by a discussion of its relationship to activity-based costing. We then consider how both systems can be applied in short-run decision making and finally summarize the manner in which marginal costing supports cost variance analysis.