Time-Driven Activity Based Costing as a Service

Due to the global economic and financial crisis the application of cost saving techniques now receives even more attention than before. Organizations are searching for new ways of cutting costs, specially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that due to their small size and market exposure need cost awareness and efficiency more than ever. However, efficient and accurate costing methodologies are out of reach for most SMEs, since these methodologies usually involve hiring expensive consulting firms. In this research we propose that costing should be offered as a service to reduce the cost of cost analysis. Our research proposal is a cloud-based costing system that offers costing as a service using Time-Driven Activity Based Costing (TDABC) methodology and the concept of Business Process Costing Templates that together reduce the cost of cost analysis, especially for SMEs. This proposal was demonstrated in three Portuguese organizations from different industries. The evaluation based on experts and practitioners' feedback showed that the proposal has potential to contribute to the research problem.