Apple's Product Pricing

Assuming that the company’s goal is to maximize profits, the current cost system is not an appropriate tool for strategic planning. The ambiguity of the overhead costs per product makes it difficult to accurately analyze the cause and effect relationships of changes and/or improvements to specific product line.

While we are performing our analysis on different aspects of the company, we look at the three main types of cost. When we remain devoted to improving our costs, and the faults related, we show our same devotion to our consumers. This is portrayed by the quality of products we put on the shelves. Prevention costs, appraisal costs and Failure costs are areas

However, as a new member with a new product, electronic product in North American market, the reputation is also an important attribute. Especially, quick delivery time is a key attribute for this company, due to the demand of quick delivery in all markets. Moreover, the manufacturing process of the new product, electronic product, on which our company will definitely focus, has a lot demands. Such as, technology, innovation and quick delivery time even the ability to make the product be the first one appearing in the market (other company, which is developing the same product, may become our competitive opponents). Especially, technology is predicted to play the most important role in the manufacturing process. On the other hand, the traditional cost system has a lot of limitations. Traditional costing system focuses on the cost reduction and the efficiency, particular the products with relatively few standardized components; Clifton, however, produces a wide range of airplane components. In addition, nonfinancial aspects of

In order for a company to succeed and be successful, it is very important for the company to understand the difference between profit and cost of goods. There are costing tools that can help a business figure out what the cost of product is during the manufacturing process. These tools are beneficial for a company to figure out how much profit can be made. These tools take the cost of manufacturing the unit and subtract it from the sale price of the product. Having this information, the profit per unit, is very beneficial for a company to know which products they should produce more heavily, or which ones to eliminate. I want to discuss two costing methods that are beneficial to a

Cost allocation is a very crucial procedure for many companies- not just production companies, but also in companies that provide service. Cost allocation has one purpose and that is to enable the determination of the cost of a product per unit in production companies and the cost of a provided service in service companies. Therefore, methods for cost allocation directly affect the service or product profitability assessment and at the same time sway segment and company profitability. The main problem is the choice of the cost allocation accounting approach. There are certain methods for cost allocation that do not apply the same to every company. If the method for

Session 1 Date September-4 Topic Introduction, overview, group assignment, product costing systems (concepts and design) Process costing systems Managing and allocating support service costs Inventory decisions Strategic issues in investment decision Managing quality and time to create value Midterm Exam Cost management and strategy The nature of management control systems Understanding strategy Strategy, balanced score card, incentive systems Organizational design & responsibility accounting Case presentation Case presentation Case presentation Case written report is due at the beginning of session 13 Final exam Chapter 1 (H) Chapter 1 (A) Chapter 2 (A) Chapter 20 (H) Chapter 18 (H) Reading Chapter 2 (H)

Process costing is an easier system to use when costing homogenous products compared to other cost allocation methods. Each process applies direct materials, labor and manufacturing overhead to the production cost total. Management accountants take the total number of goods leaving the process and divide the total process cost by this number. This creates a simple average cost for each item produced. Another advantage is that business owners use process costing because it creates a flexible production process. Companies needing to refine their process can simply add or remove a process as necessary. This also allows companies to lower their production cost for each good. Adding a process allows companies to produce slightly different goods or improve product quality. This flexibility ensures companies can produce at the most competitive cost in the economic marketplace. Also process costing provides an approach to allocate costs to

with a number of strategic issues facing a capital-intensive, mature industry. Their product costing system was

INTRODUCTION Businesses – from manufacturing, merchandising and service industries alike – take careful consideration in the analysis of their costing systems in order to be able to set up competitive prices in the market. Misallocation of costs may lead to incorrect price estimates, continuous production of unprofitable products, and ineffective processing schedules. In this case study, we will discuss the costing methods which Zauner Ornaments have used or is currently using and, in conclusion, be able to distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of each costing method. CASE CONTEXT The case seeks to assist Zauner’s comptroller, Yu Chia-yi, in determining the best costing method for their overhead costs. In addition we also aim to

The current method of apportioning production overheads based on direct labour hours can be described as a traditional approach to product costing. In a manufacturing company’s financial statements, each item produced must be allocated some of the production overheads to make the statements compliant. Sometimes the individual costs of these items can be calculated incorrectly based on overall production overhead and the system of allocating in place, however the overall financial statement can still be accurate. This traditional method of allocating the production

was renamed Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007, to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer

The purpose of this paper is to answer a few important questions: Why do companies allocate costs? How do companies allocate costs? And how this cost allocation can affect the decision making of the company. It is important for the companies to find the proper method to allocate the costs. Cost allocation is an important issue in many companies because many of the costs associated with designing, producing and distributing products and services are not easily identified with the products and services that are created. It would have been easier for companies to allocate cost if costs were directly traceable with the products and the cost allocation would have been minor issue for the company. The decision-making

Assigning the overhead costs to the products shows how profitable the products are after deducting all cost. However, it is important to find the appropriate method of overhead cost allocation. In Sippican’s case the traditional accounting method is used, which does not reflect the real resource usage of the different product lines. The correct method in this case would be to apply the time-driven ABC approach for cost allocation. Such method apart from showing the actual profitability after all cost deductions also depicts the differences in resource usage rates between the products and, thus, allows for identification of cost drivers. A contribution margin

Under the new cost system, two broad sources of costs were identified: manufacturing and SM&A. All costs within these categories were reclassified as either volume driven or order driven. Hence, four cost pools were set up.

During the 1980s the limitations of traditional product costing systems began to be widely publicised. These systems were designed decades ago when most companies manufactured a narrow range of products, and direct labour and materials were the dominant factory costs. Overhead costs were relatively small, and the distortions arising from inappropriate overhead allocations were not significant. Information processing costs were high, and it was therefore difficult to justify more sophisticated overhead allocation methods.