What are the costs associated with two or more business units called?

The correct answer is B. Indirect costs . Indirect costs are costs that cannot be economically traced to a single specific cost object, department, product, or business unit because they support multiple activities or units at the same time . Sources defining indirect costs explain that these costs are involved in more than one activity and therefore must often be allocated rather than directly assigned.

Option A is incorrect because variable costs are defined by behavior relative to activity level, not by whether they relate to more than one business unit. Option C, direct costs , are the opposite of indirect costs because they can be traced specifically to one cost object. Option D, product costs , refer to costs attached to manufacturing a product, such as direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead, and do not necessarily imply multiple business units. In cost accounting, when a cost supports shared operations and cannot be directly attributed to just one unit, it is treated as an indirect cost . Therefore, Option B is the correct answer.