Costs are the valued consumption for the actual business purpose within a period. They are not the same as expense (financial accounting), expenditure (invoice) or cash outflow (payment). Cost accounting asks only: What did this really cost us this month? That is why its figures deliberately differ from the books.
Four levels, four pairs of terms
| Level | Subject | Minus | Plus | The question behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | cash, bank | cash outflow | cash inflow | Does money flow? |
| Monetary assets | incoming and outgoing invoices | expenditure | receipts | Does a receivable or a liability arise? |
| Net assets | financial accounting (P&L) | expense | income | Does the company become poorer or richer? |
| Operations | cost accounting | cost | output | What does the actual business purpose consume and produce? |
In financial accounting: income − expense = net profit for the year. In cost accounting: output − cost = operating result or contribution margin.
Example: a company car through all four levels
Purchase price €36,000 net, invoice on 15 December 2026, paid on 15 January 2027. For tax purposes the useful life is 6 years. In reality the car is driven for 5 years and then sold for €12,000. Replacing it would cost €42,000.
| Transaction | Cash outflow | Expenditure | Expense (financial accounting) | Cost (cost accounting) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invoice arrives (15 Dec 2026) | – | 36,000 | – | – |
| Bank transfer (15 Jan 2027) | 36,000 | – | – | – |
| Depreciation per year | – | – | 6,000 (36,000 / 6) | 8,400 (42,000 / 5) |
| Refuelling | 80 | 80 | 80 | 80 |
| Sale after 5 years | +12,000 | +12,000 | +6,000 income | – |
What the rows show:
- Invoice: expenditure, but no expense. The company does not become poorer; it now owns a car. The car is capitalised – an exchange of assets.
- Depreciation: a different valuation. Financial accounting depreciates over 6 years according to tax law. Cost accounting uses the actual consumption: 5 years, valued at the replacement value of €42,000. Such costs are called differently valued costs.
- Refuelling: everything at once. Invoice, payment and consumption coincide. This is the normal case for running costs.
- Sale: no output. Selling above the residual book value (€6,000) is income in financial accounting but not part of the business purpose. For cost accounting it is non-operating income and does not appear.
All amounts are net. Input VAT is never an expense and never a cost.
Basic costs, differently valued costs, additional costs
- Basic costs appear in financial accounting and cost accounting with the same amount, e.g. refuelling, rent or an external service. This is the largest share.
- Differently valued costs appear in both, but with a different amount, e.g. the imputed depreciation in the example above.
- Additional costs exist only in cost accounting because there is no expense to match them: the imputed salary of an owner who draws no salary, or imputed interest on equity.
Differently valued and additional costs together are called imputed costs. They make the figures comparable, for example between a limited company that pays its managing director a salary and a sole proprietorship that does not.
How to map this in teamspace
You record imputed costs as a general posting with its own cost category in class 8000. For the company car that is €8,400 / 12 = €700 per month on cost category 8300 Imputed depreciation.
General posting → cost category 8300 Imputed depreciation → cost centre → cost object → €700 per monthFor a single company car, you post to the department’s cost centre and an internal cost object. For a vehicle fleet, you collect the costs on an intermediate cost object “Vehicle fleet” and allocate them to the projects. The server pool in Set up an allocation rule shows the pattern.
Cost categories in class 8000 exist only in cost accounting, never in financial accounting. A complete proposal is in the Sample chart of cost categories for service providers.
Notes
- Financial accounting stays with your tax adviser or in your financial accounting system. Cost accounting runs alongside and may differ from it. That is not a mistake but its purpose.
- Because timing (invoice, payment, consumption) and valuation (tax, actual) diverge, the cost accounting result and the net profit for the year cannot be compared directly. You can only reconcile them via basic, differently valued and additional costs.