1.2.1 Pri nciples Absorntion costing isa cowhich aims to etthe full production cost of a product.Under absorption costing,a product's cost card ill look like this:S per unitDirect materials XXDirect labourXVariable production overheadsXFixed production overheadsXFull production costDirect material and direct labour costs can be easily traced intoone product unit.Variable production overheads,by their nature,increase with output level,therefore it is easy to be assigned intoproduct units.Fixed production overheads will have to be distributedamongst cost centres and then absorbed into product units usingsuitable basis.Step 1 The first step in overheads absorption is to find out the“overhead absorption rate”(OAR),which is calculated by dividing theoverheads by the activity level.Overhead absorption rate(OAR)=Estimated Fixed productionoverhead/Estimated activity levelThe activity level can be:☆ UnitsMachine hoursLabour hours