Unlocking the potential of time-driven activity-based costing for small logistics companies

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of a time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) model in a small-sized road transport and logistics company. Activity-based costing (ABC) leads to increased accuracy benefiting decision-making, but the costs of implementation can be high. TDABC tries to overcome some of the disadvantages of ABC and seems particularly useful for the road transport and logistics sector. We find that small firms can benefit from TDABC because of the use of simplified parameters. However, the lack of quantitative data on cost drivers remains a problem. To enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of TDABC, a thorough redesign of the company's recording system is recommended.

Keywords:

• time-driven activity-based costing
• cost and performance benchmarking
• transport and logistics management