Another article is currently slated for merging into this article. Operating cost has been nominated for merging. In the discussion, editors reached a consensus to merge its contents into this article. You can assist with the merge by following the merging instructions. (May 2026) Do not remove this template after completing the merge. A bot will replace it with {{afd-merged-from}}.

This article was nominated for deletion on 21 April 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Business: Accounting High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Accounting task force. Finance & Investment Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Finance & Investment, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Finance and Investment on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Finance & InvestmentWikipedia:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentTemplate:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentFinance & Investment Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

The current version of the article includes depreciation as an operating expense, without citing a source. To my knowledge this is not correct. Operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenses (CAPEX) need to be clearly distinguished from each other. If depreciation (the distribution of capital expenses over several years for accounting purposes) is included in operating expenses, these expenses would be counted twice. Just to give one example, the following definition clearly states that depreciation is not included in Opex: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Capex_vs_Opex. I will thus take depreciation out of the list of items included in operating expenses. If other credible sources indicate that they should be included or if there should be a mistake in my reasoning, please discuss here.--Mschiffler (talk) 04:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is OPEX according to "Interpretation and Application of IFRS Standards" by PKF International Ltd. (Chapter 5: Statements of Profit or Loss), 2022 as well as "Financial & Managerial Accounting: The Basis for Business Decisions" by Williams, Jan R. (Chapter 14 Financial Statement Analysis), 2012. Gsergeyx (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the many problems that need fixing:

• This topic and especially the section on travel expenses should not be written only from an accountant's perspective. Major content and information is missing!
• "running a product" (in the first line!) is not English, and there are similar problems in the text
• This is plain wrong and nonsense: For the self-employed (contractors and freelancers), the expenses constitute business expenses. Most contractors and many if not most self-employed charge their customers for travel expenses. --Espoo (talk) 12:06, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's Operating cost and Operating expense articles seem to be describing the same thing.

If they are in fact the same thing, they should be combined, with one article redirecting to the main term.

If they are different (one of the articles contains a formula that implies that they are, but has no citation and is suspect, given that these articles draw no clear distinction between the two) then both articles should be revised to define each term clearly and distinctly from the other.