Marketing-Accounting im Dienstleistungsbereich

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Marketing decisions require reliable information from various sources, particularly relying on internal accounting for control and planning future actions. The design and orientation of this accounting significantly affect decision quality. Traditional accounting in Germany, while well-developed, has two major drawbacks: it largely stems from the industrial sector and focuses on the production process, inadequately capturing and supporting procurement and sales activities. Additionally, applying this industrial accounting model to other economic sectors, such as services, fails to address their unique characteristics, leading to problematic outcomes. As the service sector grows in importance, the issue of insufficient accounting representation becomes increasingly urgent. Both academia and practice face new challenges that remain inadequately addressed. This work aims to contribute to supporting marketing decisions in the service sector through accounting information. It considers services as core offerings that are largely intangible and involve customer participation in their creation. The author highlights the issues arising from the unique characteristics of services regarding cost recording and allocation, convincingly demonstrating that traditional cost accounting leads to unsatisfactory solutions.