The Manager's Edge Companion Guide

Using activity-based costing to put a price on your products and services.

The city of Indianapolis is hailed by many as a model of effective government. Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith used activity-based costing to make his city work better. The city's case study is included on the Indianapolis Experience Web site. Indianapolis won a 1995 Innovations in American Government award for its reforms.

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board has activity-based costing information on its Web site. Their statements of recommended acounting standards are useful tools for federal managers.

The Defense Department's Electronic College of Process Innovation has put its instructor's guide for a course on activity-based costing online. It includes useful charts and formulas describing the ABC's of ABC.

By tapping into the ROAR'n (Research on Ongoing Acquisition Research) database maintained by the Defense Systems Management College, you can learn more about a number of activity-based costing experiments in the Defense Department. The database lists an abstract describing various projects, connected to a form you can fill out to get more materials on the case studies.

The University of Pittsburgh has created a free online tutorial on activity-based costing. You can learn about ABC methods at your own pace.

The University of Southern California has a videotaped course on activity-based costing available. The cost is $850.

The Healthcare Financial Management Association has an active online forum, on which a conversation on activity-based costing has sprung up. You can join in and talk to people about their experiences.