A cost is generally understood to be that sacrifice incurred in an economic activity to achieve a specific objective, such as to consume, exchange, or produce. All types of organizations— businesses, not-for-profits, governmental— incur costs. To achieve missions and objectives, an organization acquires resources, transforms them in some manner, and delivers units of product or service to its customers or clients. Costs are incurred to perform these activities. For planning and control, decisions are made about areas such as pricing, program evaluation, product costing, outsourcing, and investment. Different costs are needed for different purposes. In each instance, costs are determined to help management make better decisions.

When incurred, costs are initially reviewed and accumulated by some classification system. Costs with one or more characteristics in common may be accumulated into cost pools. Costs are then reassigned, differently for specified purposes, from these cost pools to one...