CONSIDERATIONS AROUND SUBACTIVITY COSTS: SUBACTIVITY COSTS TREATMENT IN THE CURRENT ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

Abstract

Knowledge of subactivity costs and their correct determination are controversial subjects for management accounting, especially due to substantial relativity of the nature of those costs. Accounting norms, both Spanish and European one, on the consideration of the costs to be included in the inventories valorization, refer to the subactivity costs and productive capacity costs, indispensable for costs establishing, in a simple and rather unclear way. For this reason, in the present work, after discussing the notion of subactivity, as well as defining and describing the main alternatives for the consideration of the technical capacity of production, we speculate which could be, in this case, the reference on the basis of which the idle capacity and the subactivity cost associated with it should be measured.