Difference between Co-Product and Bi-Product with an example

By Prasobh

If you look at a petro chemical refining industry their main input material will be "Crude oil" during refining they get "Petrol", "Diesel", "Kerosene", "Naptha" & "Water" etc...

So the whole of the production cost should not go to "Petrol" alone, as Diesel, Kerosene and "Naptha" are also sellable. Water is not sold out, but is being used internal for the operation.

In this scenario "Petrol". "Diesel", "Kerosene" and "Naptha" are defined as co-products in the material master. And the cost which needs to be distributed among them are in the ratio 30:30:20:20, so in the joint production details we select the apportionment structure, and here we define the equivalence number by entering the materials and numbers as required by us as 30:30:20:20.

Now BOM is defined for the main product "Petrol" and Diesel", "Kerosene", "Naptha" and Water are defined in -ve quantity. Here the definition of water goes as "BiProduct". Crude oil is defined as component in +ve quantity. Now during order costing/product costing/settlement considers the entire cost of production based on the crude oil cost and infrastructure cost and it splits into the ratio defined in the equivalence number.