[ Music ] [ Silence ] >> So now let's talk about a framework that underlies a common activity base costing system. At the top of this framework, we have Resources. Resources are those things that are own or the firm has the right to use to create value. How is that value created? By the firm, it's managers and employees engaging in different activities. Now, this slide doesn't do the firm quite justice in the sense that it's not wide enough to incorporate every activity that a firm would engage in order to create value. So I've cut things off and started with Activity 1, Activity 2, Activity 3, all the way up to some unknown total activity, Activity N. But the idea here is to identify all of the activities that the firm engages in. Because this is quite complex, we tend to group different activities into Activity Pools. Sometimes there's a single activity in a pool and sometimes we group multiple activities into the same pool. This helps simplify a very complex system. And finally, we're thinking about the cost object. And the costs in each activity pool get assigned to different cost objects so that we understand the cost of those objects so we can make decisions. So let's delve into this framework a little deeper. Again, starting at the top, let's talk about Resources. Again, those are the tings that are owned by the firm and consumed by activities. Examples include wages for support staff, cost for equipment and cost for equipment maintenance, any sort of supply that's used in the facility, that's another resource, utilities, such as gas, electricity and water, those are resources that the firm uses and thus incurs costs. Activities are defined as the processes engaged in by the firm, managers and employees. Anybody doing anything inside the four walls of the firm is engaged in an activity, lots of examples here. They include logistics, moving things around inside of a factory, engaging with customers, either before or after a sale, setting up production, so other supporting processes for production, maintenance, etcetera, lots of different types of activities are engaged in by the firm. Because this list is so long we group activities into pools. And we do this according to their type. This helps to simplify the system so that it is manageable. Examples include unit level and product level activity pools, more on that distinction later. And finally, we have the Cost Object. As defined earlier a Cost Object is anything we want to know the cost of. However, what's different in this type of system is that ABC affords a great deal more flexibility in terms of adopting different types of cost objects to suit the setting or the decision. Examples include the units of product, whether that be a manufacturer or a service based product, product lines themselves, entire departments or business units, customers and suppliers, those can be cost objects. Again, whatever you want to know the cost of, that's your Cost Object and that is how your Activity Base Costing System provides you information. So now next, we can turn into the steps that help us to develop and implement Activity Base Costing Systems.