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Activity Based Costing for Manufacturing and Services

Traditional overhead allocation quietly cross subsidises unprofitable products and customers, distorting decisions in both factories and service firms. This course shows finance teams how to design and run an activity based costing model that traces overheads to the activities that cause them. Using South African manufacturing and services examples, delegates learn to expose the true cost of products, customers and channels.

What you will be able to do

  • Explain why volume based overhead allocation misstates product and customer cost.
  • Identify activities, resource pools and appropriate cost drivers.
  • Assign overheads to products, services and customers using activity rates.
  • Compare traditional and activity based results to surface hidden cross subsidies.
  • Use activity cost insight to inform pricing, outsourcing and process decisions.
  • Plan a practical activity based costing rollout without over engineering the model.

Course outline

  1. 01Limitations of traditional costing
  2. 02Core concepts of activity based costing
  3. 03Mapping activities and resource pools
  4. 04Selecting and validating cost drivers
  5. 05Building activity rates and cost assignments
  6. 06Customer and channel profitability analysis
  7. 07Acting on activity based insights
  8. 08Implementation pitfalls and quick wins

Who should attend

Management accountants, cost accountants, financial analysts and operations finance staff seeking more accurate product and customer costing.

Dates, venues and fees

DatesVenueDaysFeeCalendar
17 to 19 Aug 2026Nairobi3US$1,500
24 to 26 Aug 2026Durban3R13,000
31 Aug to 2 Sep 2026Johannesburg3R13,000
14 to 16 Sep 2026Mauritius3US$1,500
21 to 23 Sep 2026Dubai3US$1,500
28 to 30 Sep 2026Lagos3US$1,500
5 to 7 Oct 2026Harare3US$1,500
12 to 14 Oct 2026Kampala3US$1,500
19 to 21 Oct 2026Dar es Salaam3US$1,500
26 to 28 Oct 2026Pretoria3R13,000
2 to 4 Nov 2026Cape Town3R13,000
16 to 18 Nov 2026Online3US$900
23 to 25 Nov 2026Mozambique3US$1,500
30 Nov to 2 Dec 2026Cairo3US$1,500
7 to 9 Dec 2026Accra3US$1,500
14 to 16 Dec 2026Lusaka3US$1,500
21 to 23 Dec 2026Kigali3US$1,500

Fees are per delegate. South African venues are priced in rand; other locations and online in US dollars. Fees exclude 15% VAT where applicable. Group bookings of three or more delegates from the same organisation qualify for a reduced rate; contact us for a quotation.

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