Research On Application Of Activity-Based Costing Calculation In Third-Party Logistics Providers

As a new method to calculate and manage cost based on activity, Activity-Based Costing (ABC) has been deeply studied in theory since it is accepted by domestic scholars. But most of relevant studies are just aimed at manufacture enterprises. The proliferation in complexity, diversity, and mix, as well as the displacement of direct labour and material costs by overhead, has overwhelmed Traditional Costing (TC) practices. TC can not fit in with the requirement of enhance cost calculation and cost management in 3PLs. The main purpose of this paper is to study the application of ABC to calculate and manage logistics costs in Third-Party Logistics providers (3PLs), then search for an effective way to calculate logistics cost, from a microscopic view and the angle of logistics service provider. This article adopts mainly methods of application researching, and uses methods of integration of quantitative and qualitative analysis to confirm the applicability of ABC in 3PLs, to construct ABC calculation model, to use a case on actual logistics enterprises' data for demonstrating the ABC application in 3PLs.This paper is constructed as following: firstly, to generally introduce the background, concept and principle of ABC, and the features, classification and service contents of 3PLs, initially compare calculation between ABC and Traditional Costing. Based on the analysis of the present problem of cost calculation and product cost structure, cost attributes in 3PLs, this paper demonstrates the applicability of ABC in 3PLs;Secondly, to construct an ABC calculation apply model in 3PLs, and to use a typical calculating example to introduce how to apply ABC to calculate logistics cost; Finally, to illustrate the relationship between activity cost calculation and activity cost management, and discuss the development trend of activity cost calculation and management in 3PLs.The core of ABC method is its special and effective cost calculation, which can precisely calculate product cost. For the reason of activity cost being as calculation target, ABC calculation can make 3PLs look insight into activity level in cost management. Therefore, DABM built in this paper can efficiently put activity cost calculation and activity cost management together to serve 3PLs cost management better. Domestic 3PLs should actively utilize the new method of cost calculation and management in cost management.