First, the economic connotation of enterprise cost
The concept of cost is the basis of cost management, and enterprises should reasonably divide the boundaries between expenses and costs. The research on cost at home and abroad points out that the traditional concept of cost is one-sided and limited to the production process of products, while the business activities of modern enterprises are a comprehensive system centered on product design, production, sales and after-sales service. Therefore, the traditional concept of cost can no longer cover its real economic meaning. A basic principle of cost management is that different objects use different costs. Therefore, the significance of cost is determined by the management objectives of its services. Accounting is divided into financial accounting and management accounting Financial accounting mainly uses costs from the perspective of accounting, emphasizing the matching of income with its corresponding costs, and cannot correctly account for some costs that cannot generate income or be measured at this stage. The information provided by management accounting serves for internal business decision-making, which is also called internal accounting. Under the guidance of "different purposes and different costs", management accounting expands the connotation and extension of cost and puts forward the concept of multi-dimensional cost. It is believed that only by sorting out the extension of cost according to the purpose of expenditure can we correctly understand the connotation of cost in essence and build a clear and consistent conceptual framework of cost.
Second, the significance of reducing the cost of enterprises
Under the modern enterprise system, improving economic benefits is the starting point and destination of enterprise production and operation. The key to improving economic benefits lies in strengthening enterprise cost management, and it is well known that reducing costs can improve benefits. Under the condition of ensuring the normal production of enterprises, reducing product costs can increase profits. With high profits, enterprises will have more and more abundant funds, so they will reinvest in reproduction, expand the scale of enterprises and enter a virtuous circle development system. In terms of employee welfare, the increase of profits will also improve the welfare treatment of employees, thus effectively mobilizing the enthusiasm of employees and bringing more profits to enterprises.
Third, the problems in enterprise cost management
(A) weak awareness of cost management
The awareness of cost management in all enterprises in China is relatively weak, mainly in the top management of enterprises. Enterprise managers do not pay enough attention to cost management and control. Most managers rely on financial personnel to manage costs, and only value the figures in financial statements to control the cost of the whole enterprise. Although some enterprises have indeed achieved certain goals and reduced their costs, this kind of post-event control lacks the overall concept. In the final analysis, cost accounting cannot replace cost management. In addition, influenced by China tradition, many enterprises are limited to reducing costs by saving. The principle of cost-effectiveness cannot be applied for a long time. The low cost consciousness of enterprise employees is also the reason of high cost, which is mainly manifested in the fact that employees in the production workshop can't make full use of raw materials and waste energy seriously.
(B) the vague concept of cost
Enterprise cost is the sum of all expenses incurred by enterprises in producing and selling products. Under the socialist market economy, enterprises are both producers and operators. However, in practice, many enterprises often only pay attention to the production process of products and the management of production costs, while ignoring the influence of other non-production departments within the enterprise on costs. Such as management, design, supply and marketing. If we turn a blind eye to these departments, it will also affect the cost of enterprises. Therefore, this concept is far from adapting to the modern market economy, which makes enterprises unable to fully develop their competitive strategies and weakens their competitiveness in the market. At the same time, due to the disunity of production and operation, product backlog and capital precipitation, it will seriously affect the operation of capital and production, and eventually lead to the decline of enterprise profits and economic benefits, making it difficult to further operate in the market.
(C) outdated cost management methods
In the era of computer networking, some enterprises have entered the stage of accounting computerization, and accounting software has developed rapidly (such as UFIDA, Anyi and Kingdee). ), but its application in cost module is generally not high. Some small enterprises still keep books by hand, which leads to the low cost management level of the whole enterprise and the lack of comprehensiveness and accuracy of the financial information provided. The reason is that some enterprises use their own printed forms to count cost data, and the form design is unreasonable and irregular, resulting in great differences and ambiguity in use.
(d) The cost data is seriously distorted.
There are two reasons for this phenomenon, namely, human factors and non-human factors. First, some enterprise managers adjust the cost information at will and maliciously tamper with the figures for selfish interests or the interests of small groups, resulting in false profits and real losses of enterprises; Second, the time for collecting original cost data is not timely enough. At present, most domestic enterprises have not yet reached the point where all management information is systematized. The initial cost data is reported step by step from bottom to top, instead of being directly input into the system by the production personnel when they get the data at the first time. In this process, it is easy to lose data, which makes it difficult for financial personnel to rely on real data to prepare reports.
(E) Lack of modern management tools
The rapid development of modern science and technology has laid a foundation for enterprises to establish modern information management systems. As an important factor in business activities, information is also an organic part of enterprise cost management. With the development of economy, cost management becomes more and more complicated, especially modern cost management is closely related to scientific and technological progress. Whether the level of enterprise cost management can be improved with the development of the situation and whether it can run smoothly depends largely on the means of cost management. However, the cost management methods of many enterprises are outdated and backward, which is far from the requirements of modernization. With more and more factors affecting the cost of finished products, more and more information needs to be processed by various departments of enterprises, which urgently requires cost management of enterprises through modern electronic products.
Fourth, effective ways to reduce the cost of enterprises
(A) the traditional way to reduce the cost of enterprises
According to different cost control methods, the way to reduce costs is usually variable cost analysis or direct cost analysis, which divides costs into variable cost, fixed cost and variable cost. According to the control method of standard operation beforehand, there are two ways to reduce the cost: standard cost method or planned cost method, and the cost difference is analyzed according to three elements. It is convenient for enterprises to prepare budgets and promote and simplify cost calculation. Other enterprises also have responsibility cost accounting, target cost calculation, quality cost accounting, cost decision-making and cost budget.
However, the traditional cost reduction methods are limited to the production field in scope; From the content point of view, it is limited to manufacturing costs; From the perspective of timeliness, it is limited to cost control afterwards. It is easy for managers to ignore the overall situation to examine the cost of enterprises, which leads to the fact that cost management has little effect on improving the efficiency of enterprises. Traditional methods have not kept up with the development of the times, so managers must keep pace with the times and adopt modern scientific methods.
(B) ways to reduce costs under the modern enterprise system
Modern enterprise system is to reduce costs and improve economic benefits. The key to improve the economic benefits of enterprises lies in strengthening the cost management of enterprises. To establish a modern enterprise system under the conditions of China's socialist economy, the characteristics of enterprises now determine the characteristics of the current enterprise system. According to the characteristics of modern enterprise system, cost reduction should be carried out in the following aspects.
1. Change the thinking between leaders and employees and communicate with each other.
Among the elements of productivity, man is the most active and active factor. Talent is the key for enterprises to do well. Enterprises should start with interpersonal communication, control and coordinate human resources, and reduce enterprise costs. A business leader is not a qualified leader if he can't communicate well with his subordinates. Senior managers of enterprises are very concerned about major issues of enterprises, and it is difficult to pay attention to grass-roots work, but they often lose a lot of costs due to negligence of grass-roots work. Therefore, leaders should be good at finding the shortcomings of the enterprise in the process of communicating with subordinates, be able to listen to the problems existing in the whole enterprise, deal with and solve them in time, avoid unknown losses and reduce the cost of the enterprise. For example, Panasonic's flexible management concept.