How to Calculate Manufacturing Overhead

Tallying manufacturing overhead involves adding all direct manufacturing costs and then allocating indirect costs to products using a predetermined rate or actual usage. Direct costs are costs directly tied to a product or service that a company produces. Direct costs include direct labor, direct materials, manufacturing supplies, and wages tied to production.

• That overhead absorption rate is the manufacturing overhead costs per unit, called the cost driver, which is labor costs, labor hours and machine hours.
• Manufacturing overhead also comprises depreciation on capital equipment used in production.
• So the total manufacturing overhead expenses incurred by the company to produce 10,000 units of cycles is $50,000.
• Because these expenditures cannot be directly tied to the production of goods, reducing them can be difficult if the location of your business does not offer competitive pricing for space and services.

Usually manufacturing overhead costs include depreciation of equipment, salary and wages paid to factory personnel and electricity used to operate the equipment. Manufacturing overhead is added to the units produced within a reporting period and is the sum of all indirect costs when creating a financial statement. It is added to the cost of the final product, along with direct material and direct labor costs. To calculate manufacturing overhead, you need to add all the indirect factory-related expenses incurred in manufacturing a product.

What Is Total Manufacturing Overhead?

To help you navigate these calculations, Skynova offers accounting software that simplifies this process. As a small business owner, you can simply create new expense listings and classify the indirect costs as your manufacturing overhead. The software will help you keep track of your costs and run financial reports that help you manage your books faster so you can get back to building your business. Such variable overhead costs include shipping fees, bills for using the machinery, advertising campaigns, and other expenses directly affected by the scale of manufacturing. These include rental expenses (office/factory space), monthly or yearly repairs, and other consistent or “fixed” expenses that mostly remain the same. For example, you have to continue paying the same amount for renting office or factory space even if your company decides to lower production for this quarter.

• Costs must thus be estimated based on an overhead rate for each cost driver or activity.
• Manufacturing overhead is one of the three components that make up the cost of goods sold (COGS).
• General and administrative overhead traditionally includes costs related to the general management and administration of a company, such as the need for accountants, human resources, and receptionists.
• In more complicated cases, a combination of several cost drivers may be used to approximate overhead costs.
• For instance, if some raw materials are driving up costs, manufacturers can negotiate with other suppliers who may be willing to supply these materials at a lower cost.

They usually include the cost of the property where the manufacturing is taking place and its depreciation, purchasing new machines, repair costs of new machines and other similar costs. Accountants calculate this cost by either the declining balance method or the straight line method. In the declining balance method, a constant rate of depreciation is applied to the asset’s book value every year. The straight line depreciation method is used to distribute the carrying amount of a fixed asset evenly across its useful life.