scope:

Purpose

The DoD components are developing and fielding integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems which will provide more accurate, traceable, consistent, and visible methodologies to track and report costs. Situations which require the manual development of cost estimates will continue to exist. This chapter provides general cost estimation principles for those situations. This guidance will be followed by DoD Components when using cost finding techniques to determine the costs related to performing a service, to be charged for goods or services, or to obtain costs for decision-making or other purposes. Organizations employing formal cost accounting capabilities may use cost finding techniques to identify unfunded costs. However, any organization may from time to time have a need to use these techniques.