Cost recovery is a bookkeeping term used to describe the process of recognizing profit for an item sold. This method is useful for businesses that may not be certain they will receive all of the payments due for a sale in a single year, or that a sale may not create enough profit to cover all costs associated with creating the product or service being sold. This is one of the more cautious methods for calculating profit and helps prevent over-estimation by bearing these uncertainties in mind.
The EPA has adopted a new strategy for recovering costs related to cleanup activities. This strategy allows them to recover expenses and pay for a portion of costs from PRPs (persons or entities responsible for cleanup activities) prior to filing suit, and is known as the “cost recovery method.”
As part of this policy, EPA sends a demand letter to the PRP requesting that they reimburse the agency for costs incurred in performing their responsibilities in resolving environmental issues. The EPA will then determine the best method to collect the requested amount, and will utilize the funds collected as needed to perform cleanup activities and other agency functions.
Indirect cost recovery is another approach to recovering costs for a project, and can be achieved through strategies such as the collection of fees, or levies on event traffic. Typically, these fees are passed on to event organizers to provide incentives for them to reduce traffic impact.
A common way for organizations to measure the effectiveness of their indirect cost recovery strategies is through the collection of traffic impact data and analysis. This can help a jurisdiction identify the greatest impacts and understand how to adjust future policies to minimize the effects on local residents.
An example of indirect cost recovery occurs when a community decides to increase parking fees during events to reduce congestion on local streets. In this case, the increased parking fees can be used to pay for road closures and other infrastructure improvements that will minimize the impact of the event on local residents.
Indirect cost recovery can also occur in situations where funding has an expiry date and a department needs to find a way of offsetting the loss of revenue. For instance, a Research Award that is allocated a budget for a particular period will often have an expiry date, and if the project isn’t completed by this time, the department must find alternative means of generating income to offset the expense. This may include submitting an application for external cost recovery to an outside organization or implementing an internal cost recovery strategy.