Mile High Cycles Case

Only the incremental costs and benefits are relevant. In particular, only the variable manufacturing overhead and the cost of the special tool are relevant overhead costs in this situation. The other manufacturing overhead costs are fixed and are not affected by the decision.

11. Utilities and services standard output $150,000, actual output is $$218,000. This is a favorable variance of -$1777. This variance is due to reduce sales, less power at the plant is needed because less units are being made. 12. Research and Development standard output is $85,861, actual output is $82,841. This is a favorable variance of -$3,020. This variance is due to cut backs in R&D because of slow sales and low demand for new bikes. 13. Other General and Admin Expenses standard output $170,000, actual output is $172,000. This is an unfavorable variance of $2000. This increase is due to addition materials needed for advertising. 14. Other utilities and

Another concern identified, is the utilities expense budget for utilities in Year 9 which is $150,000. This amount is identified as a fixed amount and is unrelated to actually production activities and manufacturing efficiency. Considering that production levels and activity fluctuates throughout the year, the budget for utilities should be a variable item. An example; from Year 7 to Year 8, the utilities expenses increase by $15,000 and with this detection, ways to reduce this expense should be investigate. Another concern is a duplicated line item under the Selling, General, and Administrative Budget for Utilities and Utilities and Services. Another issue for concern, Total Variable Cost was reported to be lower; however was not enough for the lack of sales combined with an increase in advertising and transportation which resulted in an overall negative result. The low Net Sales directly impacted the Contribution Margin which decreased by $49,397. Overall, these concerns indicate the need for a flexible budget with variance analysis.

* The variances are due to the Mile High Cycle company not forecasting for increased production. The company budgeted for the production of 10,000 cycles but the actual production was 10,800 units. When the company increased production, the production efficiency decreased. The company had to use or rework parts that added extra cost to the expenses; the reworked parts added $25,000 of extra expenses to the wheel assembly production and $45,000 to the final assembly process. The material,

Wilkerson employs a Normal Cost System, which means that they use predetermined overhead rates along with actual costs for direct material and direct labor. Normal costing systems are appropriate when overhead costs are a relatively small percentage of total manufacturing costs and product diversity is limited. For Wilkerson, normal costing does not make sense. Overhead costs make up over 50 percent of total manufacturing costs and their product offering is relatively more diverse. This indicates that the current accounting system in place may be distorting costs significantly. Supporting data:

* Price Variance = 240.000-246.000 = $6000 Unfavourable. This reflects the increase in medical benefits noted by the accountant.

|2.2 Explain the purpose of using estimations when developing a budget and ways of doing so |Question 2 Page 3 |

The Kenton Company processes unprocessed milk to produce two products, Butter Cream and Condensed Milk. The following information was collected for the month of June:

The company started off producing 20,000 units of mountain bikes. We did not change the production quantity. Last year our forecast sales were 24,000 when we only sold 19,866; therefore we thought it would be best to leave production at 20,000 bikes. Having excess inventory, we concluded that 20,000 units should be enough considering our quality has not changed and our advertising will not increase the sales dramatically. Although we had the choice to produce as much as 30,000 units, we felt as though we did not have sufficient money to increase production. We were interested in allocating the money towards marketing as opposed to production. We realized that without awareness, no matter how many units we make, sales would be inefficient.

3) Using the budget Data, what was the total expected cost per unit if all manufacturing and shipping overhead (both variable and fixed) were allocate to planned production? What was the actual cost per unit of production and shipping?

Use of the flexible budget shows the budgeted operating income given the actual sales. When you compare the flexible budget to the actual budget you are able to compare the total sales and cost incurred given the same units sold. The sales price variance, which is the actual sales less the flexible budgeted sales, was $14,700 favorable. This means that actual sales were higher than budgeted sales at that usage. This is attributable to the increase in service price from $25 to $26.40. Price variance for material usage was $2,100 over the flexible budget projection. This could be attributed to overuse or waste of materials. As expected, the direct labor price variance was $3,375 lower than the flexible budget amount. This is attributed to the manager’s effective use of labor. Operating expenses were also higher than the flexible budget

Overhead costs are not in proportion to the production output because of the method they are using. This leads to inaccurate pricing and costing decisions. An Activity Based Costing System would help find the real relationship between the products produced and overhead.

1. Use the Overhead Cost Activity Analysis in Exhibit 5 and other data on manufacturing

In order to examine the relationship of overhead costs and number of consultants, Jenkins found the amount of the budget, which was deemed variable, and which was deemed fixed. The budgeted variable amount was obtained by multiplying each expense’s budgeted amount by the percent in which was expected to be variable. Then, she subtracted the budgeted

The standard costs were generated monthly. A variance analysis is made by comparing the budgeted plan or standard amount with the actual amount incurred. Factory employee usually did not understand the variance system in relation to the specific problem. This is because the variance did not address the actual problem and pinpoint cost of favourable and unfavourable variance. This made the factory worker thought the variance report was irrelevant and ignored it.