The present document relates to audio encoding/decoding. In particular, the present document relates to a method and system for reducing the complexity of a bit allocation process used in the context of audio encoding/decoding. An audio encoder (300) configured to encode an audio signal according to a first audio codec system is described. The audio encoder (300) comprises a transform unit (302) configured to determine a set of spectral coefficients (312) based on the audio signal. Furthermore, the encoder (300) comprises a floating-point encoding unit (304) configured to determine a set of scale factors and a set of scaled values (314), based on the set of spectral coefficients (312); and to encode the set of scale factors to yield a set of encoded scale factors (313).