The 1st of the New Year is approaching quickly, which means only one thing for many cost accountants and manufacturers- time to switch or “roll over” standards to the latest version.

Goodbye, 2022- Hello, 2023!

While the rest of the world celebrates and relaxes, this is a nerve-racking part of the year; ensuring that the standard costs are calculated correctly, approved, and implemented across all systems and reporting tools is strenuous.

Making the challenge even more difficult is the fact that standard costs can typically only be changed once per month- this means you have exactly one shot at getting everything right. And typically doing this in the late hours of 1/1/2023.

Throughout my corporate career, I've spent 10+ years working for 7 organizations, all in manufacturing. As I rose from humble cost accountant to manager to director, I have had a rare view of each organization's costing and product profitability. For most of these organizations, there was typically a problem to solve, and unknown "profit sinks" no one could quite explain or resolve.