Gestão de Custos através do Custeio Baseado em Atividades (ABC): um estudo de caso em um projeto de desenvolvimento de software

Abstract

The context of the era of the information demands new abilities to compete with success, such for the industrial companies as for the services ones. Since its appearance, the Engineering of Software has been facing the challenge in esteeming, control and manage costs in the process of software development. The costs are part of a software project and not always they are clearly measured. Some software developers are characterized as services companies and the organizations that render services possess the same difficulties in managerial terms that the industries, they need appropriate management systems to manage their costs, soon their resources. In that context is that the accounting information systems are inserted, supplying answers that the managers need to make decisions. The costs are examples of that type of information, because its knowledge is indispensable for a good management of the organizational resources. The Activity-based Costing (ABC) is an useful accounting tool for the strategic administration of the costs once the traditional costing systems no longer assist the need of the organizations. Considering that scenery, the general objective of that dissertation is to apply the Activity-based Costing methodology in a project of software development with the purpose of costs management. This research is characterized as qualitative descriptive and it makes use of the method of the case study. Through of that study it was possible to prove the usefulness of ABC as instrument of aid in the costs management in the organizations that render services in software development, because it makes possible the visualization in the way that the resources are consumed by the activities that add and don't add value to the business and the customer.