Logistics Costs as an Object of Management in the Accounting and Analytical System of an Enterprise

The article studies the conceptual content, nature and essence of logistics costs as an object of management in the accounting and analytical system of enterprise. It is determined that the subject of study and research of logistics is a complex purposeful flow process that combines material, financial, information, commodity, labour, human and other flows. In many domestic scientific publications on logistics, material and related information and financial flows are called logistics flows. The article substantiates the need to identify the cost flow in the study of logistics costs, which is proposed to be understood as a part of the working capital / fixed capital in monetary terms, formed because of the impact of operations for the purpose of transformation, movement of elements of material, information and financial flows, attributed to a certain time interval. The introduction and substantiation of a new object of study - the cost flow as a source of logistics costs, accompanying material, financial, and information flows, is more practical in nature, the study of its spatial, quantitative, and temporal parameters in real time is the most effective source of information for logistics management, which performs the functions of ensuring and controlling the process of implementing the logistics management approach. The very understanding of the essence of logistics costs is interconnected with the scientific and practical vision of logistics. There are many multidirectional and often contradictory definitions, the main ones of which consider logistics as an economic process, as a sphere and functions of management and as a science. It is proved that the importance of each element of the classification of logistics costs is different for enterprises of different industries. The generalised classification should allow combining important aspects from the point of view of organisation of the management process, namely: allocating logistics costs for the three main phases of movement of material flows (procurement, production, sales), determining the areas of expenditure (costs of storage, transportation, sales and costs associated with maintenance of logistics infrastructure), grouping costs by business processes and participants of business processes.