[trishyluv]

What is Direct material make up of

[morgaine300]

There isn't any one specific answer to this. Cost accounting gets into a lot of opinion, and many times it's based on management wishes as opposed to accounting rules.

Direct materials are like the "main" materials that go into an item. It needs to be something worth keeping track of in order to apply it directly to the products. As opposed to something that's not really worth keeping track of in that manner, and would be easier to lump altogether and apply it as a lump to a group of finished products.

As an example, let's say you make tables that just have a flat piece of wood, four legs, and are held together with some screws. The piece of wood and four legs would be direct materials. The screws would most likely be considered indirectly. Even if you know that there's exactly 16 screws for every table, screws are just cheap and it may not be worth the time to worry about figuring out the cost of 16 screws to apply to each table.

A better example might be a shirt. The material would be direct, whereas thread would be indirect. The buttons would be a bit of opinion but I'd tend towards indirect on that one.

I like to think of direct materials as the "main" parts of something. Indirect is generally stuff like hardware, oil, paint and the like.