What is Absorption Costing and how is it different from Variable Costing?

Absorption Costing (also known as traditional costing approach or full costing) absorbs all costs incurred to produce goods, which can result in misleading product cost information for decision-making. In absorption costing, fixed overheads are considered as product cost. These are added in the cost of inventory and not shown as separate item (period cost) in the income statement. The full cost includes cost of direct materials, direct labor, variable manufacturing overheads and fixed overheads.

The absorption costing focuses only on total cost viz. variable and fixed and it is not useful for managers to take decision, plan about future and exercise control. The cost volume profit relationship is ignored because it takes into account the total cost. Absorption costing is suitable only in those companies where equal number of units are produced and sold. However, a business operates in a dynamic environment and production and sales keep on fluctuating on a regular basis. Therefore, as absorption costing is used in such a scenario, the cost will keep on fluctuating...