A method of estimating costs in accounting. There is generally a desire that charges for health care reflect the costs of that care. This is fairly easy to achieve globally, that is, the total costs for a hospital, say, for a year can be ascertained and the charges or reimbursement can be matched to those costs. It is also easy to learn the total costs and the total charges for a revenue producing department, such as radiology. Typically, the total charges exceed the total costs, and the ratio between these two figures is easily obtained.