Implementation of Activity Based Costing in a Financial Institution: an Application of Simultaneous Equations Method

Abstract
In order to achieving finished cost of services, detecting cost bottlenecks and extracting managerial prescriptions, this research is aimed to implementation of activity based costing in a financial institution concentrated on Insurance & guarantee. Finished cost of final services calculated based on the fiscal year of 1397 institution data and suing simultaneous equations method. Contribution of the article is the use of simultaneous equations in an Iranian state-owned financial entity and the technics for overcome of its peculiar challenges such as lack of some of the needed data or non-accessibility of the data.
According to the results, some final services of the issuance type and also recovery services have higher finished costs in comparison to their peers in outside the entity and hence, there is some cost reduction potentials. Low effectiveness of the human resources and its widespread waste is the biggest bottleneck cost in the entity. The high ratio of indirect costs to direct costs is another important finding that in combination to lower contribution of overhead centers in production processes means the need to reconsideration of resource allocation to overhead centers. It should be noted that, concentration on declining the claims ratio through improvement of risk management and reallocation of cost pools is the best way to cost reduction and profitability of the financial institution regarded to nature of its activities.