Definition
In the business sense, costs are a monetary unit. This indicates the consumption of production factors that are required for the creation of operational outputs, such as goods and services.
In the macroeconomic sense, the term costs covers, in addition to material goods, also intangible values. Different types of costs, such as personnel costs or material costs, cannot always be assigned to a cost object. They are therefore also distinguished between directly attributable individual costs and indirectly attributable overhead costs.
Depending on the level of capacity utilization, costs are also distinguished into fixed and variable costs. While fixed costs are constant, variable costs depend on the level of capacity utilization.