title: Laboratory manager's financial handbook. Cost accounting: the road map to financial success.
abstract: Cost accounting is the most basic element of the laboratory's financial management structure. Historically, cost accounting in the nonmedical world referred to accumulating and assigning costs to units of production and departments, primarily for inventory valuation and income determination. In the health industry, microcost accounting is distinguishable from macrocost (management/internal) accounting and serves multiple purposes. Microcost accounting pertains to gathering and providing information for decision making. The range of decisions include managing recurring operations, making nonrecurring strategic decisions, and formulating major organizational policies. Macrocost accounting fulfills the legal requirements of reporting to stockholders, auditors, governmental agencies, and other external parties.
authors.affiliation: Veterans Administration Medical Center, Northport, NY, USA.
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Travers
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting / Q000379:methods*; D003361:Cost Allocation / Q000379:methods; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D003955:Diagnostic Tests, Routine / Q000191:economics; D004864:Equipment and Supplies / Q000191:economics; D005376:Financial Management / Q000379:methods*; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D017721:Hospital Costs; D007182:Income; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration; D008331:Management Information Systems / Q000592:standards; D017146:Models, Organizational; D008486:Physician Executives / Q000592:standards; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce