Recent evolutions in costing systems: A literature review of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing

This article provides a comprehensive literature review of Time-Driven Activity Based Costing (TDABC), a relatively new tool to improve the cost allocation to products and services. After a brief overview of traditional costing and activity based costing systems (ABC), a detailed description of the TDABC model is given and a comparison made between this methodology and its predecessor ABC. Thirty-six empirical contributions using TDABC over the period 2004-2012 were reviewed. The results and conclusions of these studies are grouped according to the main areas of application of the method such as logistics, manufacturing, services, health, hospitality and nonprofit services. Potential benefits, and challenges are identified.