The Cost Accounting System in B-to-B Service Companies: Cost Centers or Activity-based Costing?

Service business-to-business (b-to-b) companies provide a wide range of services characterized by a high level of variability and complexity, very often due to the so called ‘service customization’. In this context, the need to manage the trade-off between customer satisfaction and cost control emerges: therefore the choice of the right cost accounting system acquires an important role in order to identify and manage the links between the services offered to the customers and the costs of their production processes. In this article the two main cost accounting systems are analyzed (cost centers system and activity-based costing system), focusing in particular on the need to identify the final object of cost measurement (service component). The activity-based costing system together with the introduction of new cost containers (cost destinations), allows to accurately calculate the costs of the services provided and to identify the causal relationships between costs and services. The article analyzes the case of a b-to-b company which supplies IT services to banks.