Allocation Definition & Meaning

When the fair value of identifiable acquired assets less liabilities assumed exceeds the purchase price of the acquired company in an acquisition under the “purchase method,” the value otherwise assignable to tangible capital assets shall be reduced by a proportionate part of the excess. Alternative Allocation Process – As an alternative to the above allocation process all the undistributed assets for one or more service centers or similar intermediate cost objectives may be allocated to the G&A expense pool. Consequently, the cost of money for these undistributed assets will be distributed to the final cost objectives on the same basis that is used to allocate G&A expense.

The costs of any work performed by one segment for another segment shall not be treated as IR&D costs or B&P costs of the performing segment unless the work is a part of an IR&D or B&P project of the performing segment. If such work is part of a performing segment’s IR&D or B&P project, the project will be transferred to the home office to be allocated in accordance with paragraph of this subsection. Contractors with prior CAS-covered contracts with full coverage shall continue this Standard’s applicability upon receipt of a contract to which this Standard is applicable. For contractors with no previous contracts subject to this Standard, this Standard shall be applied beginning with the contractor’s second full fiscal year beginning after the receipt of a contract to which this Standard is applicable.

Cost Allocation Example 1

If all of the $2,000,000 worth of raw material had been charged to cost objectives during the cost accounting period, the cost input base for the allocation of the G&A expense pool would include the entire $2,000,000. An auditor recommends disallowance of certain direct labor and direct materials costs, for which a billing has been submitted under a contract, on the basis that these particular costs were not required for performance and were not authorized by the contract. The contracting officer issues a written decision which supports the auditor’s position that the questioned costs are unallowable. Following receipt of the contracting officer’s decision, the contractor must clearly identify the disallowed direct labor and direct material costs in his accounting records and reports covering any subsequent submission which includes such costs. Also, if the contractor’s base for allocation of any indirect cost pool relevant to the subject contract consists of direct labor, direct material, total prime cost, total cost input, etc., he must include the disallowed direct labor and material costs in his allocation base for such pool. Had the contracting officer’s decision been against the auditor, the contractor would not, of course, have been required to account separately for the costs questioned by the auditor. Actuarial cost method means a technique which uses actuarial assumptions to measure the present value of future pension benefits and pension plan administrative expenses, and which assigns the cost of such benefits and expenses to cost accounting periods.

• A contractor allocates general management expenses on the basis of total cost input.
• A right to a pension benefit is not forfeitable solely because it may be affected by the employee’s or beneficiary’s death, disability, or failure to achieve vesting requirements.
• Market value is the current or prevailing price of the security as indicated by market quotations.
• The percentage of the segment’s operating revenue to the total operating revenue of all segments.
• For example, if headcount is the basis of allocation for insurance cost and a company has 500 employees, then the department with 100 employees will account for 20% of the insurance cost.
• They shall, however, be developed to represent a full cost accounting period, except as provided in paragraph of this subsection.
• Payment is allocated to the items of the bill unit that contains the default balance group for the account and update the account balance accordingly.

When processing payments manually in Billing Care or Customer Center, you can allocate payments before or after validating them. When you validate a payment, if you see a message in the status bar that says something similar to “Payment allocation required,“ you must allocate the payment. If the bill number is missing or cannot be found, BRM uses the bill amount to find the correct bill. If neither the bill number nor the bill amount can be determined, BRM allocates the payment to the oldest bills first, because they are collected first.

Planning

As of such date, the actuarial accrued liability represents the excess of the present value of future benefits and administrative expenses over the present value of future normal costs for all plan participants and beneficiaries. The excess of the actuarial accrued liability over the actuarial value of the assets of a pension plan is the Unfunded Actuarial Liability. The excess of the actuarial value of the assets of a pension plan over the actuarial accrued liability is an actuarial surplus and is treated as a negative unfunded actuarial liability. The sum of “distributed” and “undistributed” must also correspond to the amount shown on the “total” line.

Been sold or ownership has been otherwise transferred, discontinued operations, or discontinued doing or actively seeking Government business under contracts subject to this Standard. The right to a pension benefit is nonforfeitable and is communicated to the participants. what does allocate mean in accounting Except as provided in paragraphs and of this subsection, the cost of a category of materials shall be accounted for in material inventory records. This Standard shall not apply to contracts and grants with state, local, and Federally recognized Indian tribal governments.

The calculation of the difference between the market value of the assets and the actuarial accrued liability shall be made as of the date of the event (e.g., contract termination, plan amendment, plant closure) that caused the closing of the segment, pension plan termination, or curtailment of benefits. If such a date is not readily determinable, or if its use can result in an inequitable calculation, the contracting parties shall agree on an appropriate date. Curtailment of benefits means an event; e.g., a plan amendment, in which the pension plan is frozen and no further material benefits accrue. Future service may be the basis for vesting of nonvested benefits existing at the time of the curtailment. The plan may hold assets, pay benefits already accrued, and receive additional contributions for unfunded benefits. Under the first plan, in which the benefits are not subject to a collective bargaining agreement, the contractor’s actuary believes that the contractor will be required to increase the level of benefits by specified percentages over the next several years based on an established pattern of benefit improvements.

Although these cameras are identical, the actual cost of each camera is charged to the contract for which it was acquired without establishing a material inventory record. The purpose of this Cost Accounting Standard is to provide criteria for the accounting for acquisition costs of material. Consistent application of this Standard will improve the measurement and assignment of costs to cost objectives. In any cost accounting period in which such a reduction is made, the balance of the inventory suspense account shall be reduced to be equal to the ending inventory of contracts subject to the CAS clause of that cost accounting period. A contractor acquires, and capitalizes as an asset accountability unit, a new lathe. He acquires, and capitalizes as an original complement of low-cost equipment related to the lathe, a collection of tool holders, chucks, indexing heads, wrenches, and the like.

The purchase price of an asset shall be adjusted to the extent practical by premiums and extra charges paid or discounts and credits received which properly reflect an adjustment in the purchase price. Other terms defined elsewhere in this part 99 shall have the meanings ascribed to them in those definitions unless paragraph of this subsection, requires otherwise. Appropriate implementation of this Standard will limit the amount of home office expenses classified as residual to the expenses of managing the organization as a whole. Other terms defined elsewhere in this part 99 shall have the meanings ascribed to them in those definitions unless paragraph of this section requires otherwise. The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation.

406 Cost Accounting Standard

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The costs of compensated personal absence for an entire cost accounting period shall be allocated pro-rata on an annual basis among the final cost objectives of that period. However, costs incurred for repairs and maintenace to a tangible capital asset which either restore the asset to, or maintain it at, its normal or expected service life or production capacity shall be treated as costs of the current period.

Indirect Costs

As in Example of this subsection, the sample items are traced to prior years to determine the year in which acquired. Where the disposition results from an involuntary conversion and the asset is replaced by a similar asset, gains and losses may either be recognized in the period of disposition or used to adjust the depreciable cost base of the new asset.

To the extent that any cost allocations are required by the provisions of other Cost Accounting Standards, such allocations are not subject to the provisions of this Standard. Self-insurance charge means a cost which represents the projected average loss under a self-insurance plan. For an ESOP, the deferred compensation cost shall be the amount contributed to the ESOP by the contractor. Any other deferred compensation plan designed to invest primarily in the stock of the contractor’s corporation including, but not limited to, plans covered by ERISA. The total of this column should agree with the business unit’s total shown in Column 2. A supporting work sheet of this allocation should be prepared if there is more than one service center or other similar “intermediate” cost objective involved in the reallocation process.

Position Restrictions Costing If Changing Accounts For A Vacant Position

Pension plan means a deferred compensation plan established and maintained by one or more employers to provide systematically for the payment of benefits to plan participants after their retirement, provided that the benefits are paid for life or are payable for life at the option of the employees. Additional benefits such as permanent and total disability and death payments, and survivorship payments to beneficiaries of deceased employees may be an integral part of a pension plan. Market value of the assets means the sum of the funding agency balance plus the accumulated value of any permitted unfunded accruals belonging to a pension plan. The Actuarial Value of the Assets means the value of cash, investments, permitted unfunded accruals, and other property belonging to a pension plan, as used by the actuary for the purpose of an actuarial valuation. The fair market value of the assets held by the funding agency as of a specified date is the Funding Agency Balance as of that date.

• Before allocating the cost, a company must define the various types of costs.
• The validity of each assumption used shall be evaluated solely with respect to that assumption.
• Unallowable cost means any cost which, under the provisions of any pertinent law, regulation, or contract, cannot be included in prices, cost reimbursements, or settlements under a Government contract to which it is allocable.
• Such systems track the entity that produces the goods or services and the body that consumes that goods or services.
• Supporting records shall be maintained which are adequate to show the age at retirement or, if the contractor so chooses, at withdrawal from active use for a sample of assets for each significant category.
• Deferred compensation means an award made by an employer to compensate an employee in a future cost accounting period or periods for services rendered in one or more cost accounting periods prior to the date of the receipt of compensation by the employee.

1 Note that this illustration assumes that the facts and circumstances of the award indicate that the award relates equally to each period of future service. If consumption measures are unavailable or impractical to ascertain, the next best representation of the beneficial or causal relationship for allocation is a measure of the output of the activities of the indirect cost pool. Thus, the output is substituted for a direct measure of the consumption of resources. A business unit shall have a written statement of accounting policies and practices for classifying costs as direct or indirect which shall be consistently applied. Insurance administration expenses which are material in relation to total insurance costs shall be allocated on the same basis as the related premium costs or self-insurance charge. If the award is made in the stock of the contractor, the cost of deferred compensation for such awards shall be based on the market value of the stock on the measurement date; i.e., the first date the number of shares awarded is known.

Consistent application of these criteria and guidance will improve classification of costs as direct and indirect and the allocation of indirect costs. If only some of the pension plan assets and actuarial accrued liabilities of the closed segment are transferred, then the adjustment amount required under this paragraph shall be determined based on the pension plan assets and actuarial accrued liabilities remaining with the contractor.

The form and instructions stipulated in this Standard shall be used to make the computation. Intangible capital asset means an asset that has no physical substance, has more than minimal value, and is expected to be held by an enterprise for continued use or possession beyond the current accounting period for the benefits it yields. The appropriate actuarial assumptions are, in the aggregate, materially different for the segment than for the average of all segments. Calculations of termination of employment gains and losses shall give consideration to factors such as unexpected early retirements, benefits becoming fully vested, and reinstatements or transfers without loss of benefits.

For example, if headcount forms the basis of allocation for insurance costs, and there are 1000 total employees, then a department with 100 employees would be allocated 10% of the insurance costs. If preestablished rates are revised during a cost accounting period and if the variances accumulated to the time of the revision are significant, the costs allocated to that time shall be adjusted to the amounts which would have been allocated using the revised preestablished rates. This Standard does not cover accounting for the costs of special facilities where such costs are accounted for in separate indirect cost pools. The contractor shall maintain such records as may be necessary to substantiate the amounts of premiums, refunds, dividends, losses, and self-insurance charges, paid or accrued, and the measurement and allocation of insurance costs. Memorandum records may be used to reflect any material differences between insurance costs as determined in accordance with this standard and as includable in financial statements prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. If the award is made under a plan which requires irrevocable funding for payment to the employee in a future cost accounting period together with all interest earned thereon, the amount assignable to the period of award shall be the amount irrevocably funded.

• Two variations of this example have been prepared to illustrate the impact of excluding or including cost of money from total cost input.
• Financial reports to stockholders are made on a calendar year basis for the entire contractor corporation.
• The $1 million cost must be allocated to the resulting 90 lots in a meaningful way so that the developer can report the profit of selling two residential lots and the largest of the business lots.
• Future service may be the basis for vesting of nonvested benefits existing at the time of the curtailment.
• They are shared costs because the trip benefited both product departments and cost objects.
• Costing Allocation Attachments (if nothing under this section, please click the „+“ symbol. May click „+“ for as many rows of accounts as needed)Order – May use this to change the order the accounts appear in.

Initial outfitting of the unit is completed when the unit is ready and available for normal operations. Practices used for estimating costs for proposalsPractices used in accumulating and reporting costs of contract performance4. Contractor estimates a total dollar amount for engineering labor which includes disparate and significant elements or functions of engineering labor. Contractor does not provide supporting data reconciling this amount to the estimates for the same engineering labor cost functions for which he will separately account in contract performance4. Contractor accounts for engineering labor by cost function, i.e. drafting, designing, production, engineering, etc.5. Contractor estimates engineering labor by cost function, i.e. drafting, production engineering, etc5.

Finally, allocating costs properly can help you identify profitable areas of your business and products or services that may be losing money, enabling you to make proactive decisions regarding both. Properly allocating costs is also essential for accurate financial reporting. Business owners rely on financial statements to make management decisions, and if the reports are inaccurate, it’s likely the decisions made will negatively affect the business. In July, Carrie produced 2,000 backpacks with direct material costs of $5.50 per backpack, and $ 2.25 direct labor costs per backpack. In the examples below, we used the square footage and the units produced methods to calculate the appropriate cost allocation.

Table 12 shows the measurement of the unfunded actuarial liability for 2016 through 2018. A pension plan applicable to a Federally-funded Research and Development Center that is part of a State pension plan shall be considered to be a defined-contribution pension plan for purposes of this Standard. A multiemployer pension plan established pursuant to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement shall be considered to be a defined-contribution pension plan for purposes of this Standard. A participant whose employment status with the employer has not been terminated is an active participant of the employer’s pension plan. Actuarial gain and loss means the effect on pension cost resulting from differences between actuarial assumptions and actual experience. Category of material means a particular kind of goods, comprised of identical or interchangeable units, acquired or produced by a contractor, which are intended to be sold, or consumed or used in the performance of either direct or indirect functions. Directly allocated expenses related to the management and administration of the receiving segment as a whole, shall be included in the receiving segment’s G&A expense pool.