Abstract
According to activity based costing, the cost of a product can be calculated correctly only when also the costs to the activity or to the processes that were used to produce them are taken into consideration. Only later the total cost of single activities can be attributed to the products. To do such a calculation it is necessary to use cost determinants. These are variables which influence the cost of single activities and which correlate the activity and resources to the single activity. In particular, the cost determinants should be, where possible, factors which express the organisational-managerial complexity which governs the working of a specific activity.