In the initial stages cost accounting was merely considered to be a technique for ascertainment of cost of products or services on the basis of historical data. In course of time due to competitive nature of the market, it was realized that ascertainment of cost is not as important as controlling costs. Hence, cost accounting started to be considered more as a technique for cost control a s compared to cost ascertainment. Due to technological development in all fields, now cost reduction has also come within the ambit of cost accounting. Cost accounting is thus concerned with recording, classifying and summarizing costs for determination of costs of products or services, planning, controlling and reducing such costs and furnishing of information to management for decision making.