Production and cost theory-based material flow cost accounting

Abstract We develop a material flow cost accounting system for planning efficient and inefficient costs in arbitrary production processes. The basis of this accounting system is a material flow model with waste and rejects as the main factors of material losses, which is used to determine efficient and inefficient material demand at quantity center and product unit level. This production theoretical foundation enables an extension of the known material flow cost accounting system by a cost unit accounting and clarifies the relationships to other cost accounting systems. Finally, we discuss the necessary steps to implement material cost accounting as a marginal cost accounting system to provide relevant information for short-term decisions.