It's going to cost you: A cross-sectional activity-based budgeting model for estimating administrative costs in convenience store chains

Convenience store chains have administrative functions---largely accounting, human resource, and compliance activities---to support the business operations. Chains across the United States and Canada, while rich in operational industry benchmark data, have no data to help evaluate the appropriateness of their administrative costs.;Using a mixed-methods approach built on the theoretical foundation of activity-based budgeting, data was gathered and analyzed attempting to link chain activities to administrative processes. The data gathered covered chains owning from five to seventy stores.;The results show that economies of scale and automation of paperwork handling, particularly as it pertains to inside-the-store activity, yield per-store cost savings, Increases in chain size have more potential to increase administrative costs than increases in business complexity. Specific activities are linked to per-store administrative cost providing practitioners with inferential guidance as to where administrative cost savings can be found.