BPIF publishes costing guidelines to complement VIP MIS study

The new ‘Costing Guidelines’ booklet is the BPIF’s first publication in almost 10 years to address the thorny issue of calculating cost rates in the printing industry. The recent Vision in Print (ViP) Management Information Systems (MIS) Best Practice Study discovered that only 35 per cent of printing companies operate a costing system, with only 7 per cent regularly comparing job costs against estimates.

‘It’s been almost 10 years since the BPIF last published costing guidelines. Since understanding what makes up your costs is the starting point of running a profitable business, the BPIF will only be able to achieve its mission of improving sector profitability if we can significantly increase the number of companies that are actively managing their costing systems,’ said head of BPIF business Gil Reid Robbins.

BPIF members can download a free copy of ‘Costing Guidelines’ from the Publications page of www.britishprint.com. Non-members can download the publication for 10 VAT from www.printdata.org.uk.
‘Costing Guidelines’ has been written by BPIF Associate John Roche and is an entry-level introduction to costing, giving a good explanation of all the key methodologies but focusing on the most commonly adopted absorption costing method.

‘This 24 page book is designed to introduce the fundamentals of costing to those 65 per cent of printers that are currently not running a proper costing system. Costing can become a very academic subject with much debate on the different principles to be used. The three main costing models are introduced in ‘Costing Guidelines’, however it was important to deliver guidelines that easily understood and implemented as a first step. Once in place, costing systems can be refined to best meet business needs,’ said author John Roche.

Vision in Print chief executive Richard Gray recommends the book as a partner to the new MIS Best Practice study that has recently been published on ViP’s own website, www.visioninprint.co.uk. ‘An accurate and effective costing system is as important to best practice in MIS as wheels are to cars.  Good use of MIS, as described in the study, can significantly improve business productivity. One key step in achieving this is to ensure the business has an effective costing system in place.’

Businesses should also consider using professional support for effective implementation of costing systems which is available from the BPIF through its commercial business support organization BPIF Business. Contact Gil Reid Robbins on 44 (0)20 7915 8345 for more information.

The BPIF would like to thank Hugh Speirs of Cambrian printers and John Roche of Ortega software for their help with Costing Guidelines and to Richard Gray of Vision in Print for suggesting and supporting the idea.