In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this case, money is the input that is gone in order to acquire the thing. This acquisition cost may be the sum of the cost of production as incurred by the original producer, and further costs of transaction as incurred by the acquirer over and above the price paid to the producer. Usually, the price also includes a mark-up for profit over the cost of production.
More generalized in the field of economics, cost is a metric that is totaling up as a result of a process or as a differential for the result of a decision. Hence cost is the metric used in the standard modeling paradigm applied to economic processes.
Costs (pl.) are often further described based on their timing or their applicability.
Read more about Cost: Types of Accounting Costs, Comparing Private, External, Social, and Psychic Costs, Cost Estimation, Path Cost, Manufacturing Costs VS. Non-manufacturing Costs
Other articles related to "cost, costs":
... Many small to medium sized country towns in Australia have benefited from the cost-effective approach of using low powered FM transmitters ... The setup cost is achievable for most communities ... The ongoing cost is minimal due to low maintenance equipment with low power consumption - some stations in remote areas even use solar power ...
... tax systems allow a tax deduction for recovery of the cost of assets used in a business or for the production of income ... Where the assets are consumed currently, the cost may be deducted currently as an expense or treated as part of cost of goods sold ... The cost of assets not currently consumed generally must be deferred and recovered over time, such as through depreciation ...
... It is estimated that the basic cost of the car, without registration or tax, will be around five million Danish kroner, which is approximately $850,000 US dollars ... The cost of putting the car on the road in Denmark would be around 16 million kroner as a result of registration expenses, but Zenvo is aiming at the ...
... Cost of Barber School—Many states require a barber license in order to practice barbering professionally ... The cost of barber school varies from state to state, and also from metro area to metro area ... Schools in larger metropolitan areas tend to cost more than those located in more rural towns ...
... time cumulative volume doubles, value added costs (including administration, marketing, distribution, and manufacturing) fall by a constant percentage ... the of cumulative units produced on the horizontal axis and unit cost on the vertical axis ... A curve showing a 15% cost reduction for every doubling of output is called an “85% experience curve”, indicating that unit costs drop to 85% of their original level ...
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“How much would it cost you to stand at the wrong end of a shooting gallery?”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers, Huxley College president to con artist Baravelli (Chico Marx)
“The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic and critical temperament. It makes us pay too high a price for its wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets at a cost that is monstrous and infinite.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)