ered that the main theme of management accounting is to provide information for decision making & thus these costing methods should convey message more than classification but also to justify the activity per se.According to Broadbent & Cullen [11], the term cost center refer to managers assume responsibility for cost. It is true that the HR department does not directly generate revenue for the company but providing services to all employees. Whether the cost should be, or how should it be, absorbed by other departments is opened to debate. However, to assist user departments to truly review their operation cost & to imply effective control in the cost spent, appropriate cost apportionment should be done. As Cave & Mills [12] stated that costs that cannot be directly assigned are called common cost & should be shared out in an equitable manner on the basis of the estimated benefits received by the cost centers. Although cost apportionment is a subjective exercise, using a relevant & consistent apportioning basis can largely assist the process. Take the work safety training as example again, the major cost involved are the training materials & the cost of the trainer. The cost can be apportioned to individual department according to the number of attending employees of that department since all attending employees are assumed to receive the same benefits from the training lesson.Besides, when appropriate cost apportionment is done, user department tends to become more concern about the efficiency & effectiveness of these service-to-all activities. For example when no cost is charged to the departments, they will simply ask the employees to attending the training again in case their employees fail the test. However, if such training lesson is presented in dollar amount, failure the test means that a certain amount of dollar is wasted & another amount of dollar have to be spent again. In return the training lesson receive more foc...
