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Kings Mountain Distillery Case Essay

Decent Essays

1. All costs to “produce” the whiskey should be included in the cost of inventory.

- Raw materials like water, corn, barley malt, rye
- Other indirect material used in the production process
- Cost of barrels used in the aging process
- Labor and supplies of chemical lab
- Direct labor costs, e.g. of employees/operators working in the factory
- Depreciation of plant and warehouse equipment
- Building expenses for factory and warehouse
- Cost of filling the whiskey in bottles

All these costs are more or less directly related to the manufacture of liquor and should form a part of manufacturing expenses which should be charged to the cost of finished goods produced.

2. In the given current situation Kings Mountain …show more content…

In the given KMD case the whiskey is sold at the end of the four-year aging period. If KMD would depreciate the barrels, the costs can´t be charged to the income statement because the whiskey has not been sold yet. So, it makes no difference to the income statement if KMD depreciates the barrels or if they account the value to inventory.
In the balance sheet we would have a different situation: The balance sheet would contain the barrels as an asset and the value of inventory would increase while the value of the barrels actually would decrease.
Also: The barrels can´t be reused. KMD can only use them one time and then has no more value (besides the $1.50 selling price to the used barrel dealer) which could be depreciated.
This is also a significant difference when comparing the barrels to a machine. Of course, any capitalized machine equipment can be used ongoing and therefore has some value to the owner which can be depreciated.

4. In my opinion all costs, which are necessary to produce the whisky until the product is ready for sale, should be included in the cost of the finished product. This procedure would affect the net income only in the case if the inventory changes from one year to another. But the text clearly says that “the volume of production had been the same for each of the years 1991 to 1995”, so the

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