Explain how activity-based costing systems can provide more accurate product costs than traditional ...

A key reason for assigning indirect costs using an ABC system rather than a traditional system is that ABC cost systems reflect differences required by different processes. Activity-based costing systems provide better product costs when they identify and cost more indirect cost differences among products. Activity-based costing seeks to distinguish batch-level, product-sustaining, and facility-sustaining costs especially when they are not proportionate to one another.

Unit-level drivers in traditional cost systems distort product costs because, effectively, these systems assume that all indirect activities affect all products. Thus, these systems assign each unit of product an average cost that fails to recognize the specific activities that are required to produce that product.

Activity-based costing differs from traditional costing systems in that products are not cross-subsidized by support costs being shared by everyone. Activity-based costing is more likely to result in major differences from traditional costing systems if the firm manufactures multiple products rather than only one product.