By Gary Cokins; Analytics-Based Performance Management LLC, President … and Profitability Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE), Director What is cost accounting? Is it simply a form of accounting for how expenses (e.g., salaries, wages, purchases) are calculated as costs (e.g., products, service-lines, customers)? Is it a method to provide and display visibility and the behavior of costs? A way to think about cost accounting can be with an analogy from physics and