Variator (KER)

The variator determines which part (percentage) of a cost type is proportional to the service provided and which is fixed. Variators are thus an aid in cost and revenue accounting (KER). The cost center costs are split into their proportional and their fixed part.

This method is obsolete and should no longer be used as it leads to incorrect results. The example explains this:

The sales and production planning resulted in a planned employment for this cost center of 14,400 hours. The cost center manager has planned a workforce of 10 people, which results in a normal capacity of 16,000 hours of attendance. 1 hour of attendance costs the company 30.00. 90% of the planned hours should therefore flow into the products to be manufactured, which results in the proportional personnel costs of 432,000 or the variator of 90% (remainder fixed).

In terms of performance-related material costs , it was recognized that an hourly planned employment of 5 should be used, which corresponds to a variator of 72%. The comparison between the variator method and direct performance-related planning shows the same plan cost rates, e.g. B. 35, - proportional plan cost rate per hour.

Since the management anticipates greater fluctuations in production quantities, they decide to equip the cost center with a reserve employee (security variant) and thereby increase the normal capacity to 17,600 hours. This also increases the volume of personnel costs by 10%.

Since the variators are part of the master data and there is no provision for them to be adjusted by cost element with every change in normal capacity or planned employment, incorrect cost rates result in the security variant. Because even in the second variant, 30.00 personnel costs and 5.00 material costs are incurred for every hour that is worked on order; it is the same people with the same wages who do this work. If the planned employment were to increase as a result of revised sales planning, each variator would also have to be adjusted.

Conclusion: Variators are unsuitable for the design of a flexible plan cost calculation and a real contribution margin calculation , since they have to be adjusted in the master data for each service change by cost type. The directly performance-related planning produces the correct values. In addition, it ensures that the proportional plan cost rate remains the same even with changes in the production program and thus with other planned jobs.

literature

• Lukas Rieder : Controller Guide. The standard work for effective controlling and effective controller activity . Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-297-01982-5 .
• Lukas Rieder: Internal working paper: Variators . Ed .: CZSG Controller Zentrum St. Gallen AG ,. St. Gallen 2011.
• Marcell Schweitzer , Hans-Ulrich Küpper , Gunther Friedl , Christian Hofmann , Burkhard Pedell : Systems of cost and revenue accounting . 11th edition. Verlag Franz Vahlen, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8006-5027-9 .