Product Costs vs Period Costs
Product Costs vs Period Costs

See Also:
Product Pricing Strategies

Product Costs vs Period Costs

In accounting, all costs incurred by a company can be categorized as either product costs or period costs. The two types of costs are recorded differently.
Product costs are applied to the products the company produces and sells. Product costs refer to all costs incurred to obtain or produce the end-products. Examples of product costs include the cost of raw materials, direct labor, and overhead. Before the products are sold, these costs are recorded in inventory accounts on the balance sheet. They are treated like assets. Product costs are sometimes referred to as “inventoriable costs.” When the products are sold, these costs are expensed as costs of goods sold on the income statement.

Period costs are the costs that cannot be directly linked to the production of end-products. Essentially, a period cost is any cost that is not a product cost. Examples of period costs include sales costs and administrative costs. Period costs are always expensed on the income statement during the period in which they are incurred.
In sum, product costs are inventoried on the balance sheet before being expensed on the income statement. Period costs are just expensed on the income statement.
Product Costs vs Period Costs

ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

The Accounting Gap Between Large and Small Companies

The Accounting Gap: It’s unfortunate, but true. A large gap exists between the accounting departments of large or publicly traded companies and smaller or private companies. In our past 25 years of consulting we’ve noticed that more often than not, these smaller/private companies will fill the gap with Bookkeepers, rather than the degreed Accountants/CPAs they

Read More »

The Struggles of Private Company Accounting

Building your Accounting Department… When I meet a business owner operating at a successful $10+ mil in revenue I often hear them say “My CPA…” and I immediately know they are referring to a tax CPA. One thing ALL entrepreneurs have in common is that they have to file a tax return. So from day

Read More »

Financial Ratios

See also:Quick Ratio AnalysisPrice to Book Value AnalysisPrice Earnings Growth Ratio AnalysisTime Interest Earned Ratio Analysis Use of Financial Ratios Financial Ratios are used to measure financial performance against standards. Analysts compare financial ratios to industry averages (benchmarking), industry standards or rules of thumbs and against internal trends (trends analysis). The most useful comparison when

Read More »

JOIN OUR NEXT SERIES

Financial Leadership Workshop

MARCH 28TH-31ST 2022

THE ART OF THE CFO®

Financial Leadership Workshop

Days
Hours
Min

June 12-15th, 2023

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
WIKI CFO® - Browse hundreds of articles