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Segment Reporting and Decentralization

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Subject: Cost and Management Accounting

Prepare a segmented income statement using the contribution format, and explain the difference between traceable fixed costs and common fixed cost.

Segment reporting and Profitability Analysis
A different kind of income statement is required for evaluating the performance of a profit or investment center, something that emphasizes segments rather than the performance of the company as a whole. A segment is any part or activity of an organization about which a manager seeks cost, revenue, or profit data. A segment can be an individual store, a sales territory and a service center.
There are two keys to building segmented income statements: • A contribution format should …show more content…

The general guideline is to treat as traceable costs only those costs that would disappear over time if the segment itself disappeared.

Traceable cost can become common cost:

Fixed cost that is traceable to one segment can become a common cost for another segment. For example, an air line might want a segmented income statement that shows the segment margin for a particular flight from Loss Angeles to Paris further broken down into first class, business class and economy class segment margins. The airline must pay a landing fee Charles DeGaulle air port in Paris. This fixed landing fee is a trace able fixed cost of the flight, but it is a common fixed cost of first class, business class and economy class segments. Even the first class cabinet is empty the entire landing fee must be paid. So the landing fee is not a traceable cost of the first class segment. But on the other hand paying the landing fee is necessary in order to have any first, business and economy class passengers. So the landing fee is common cost for these three classes of passengers and is a traceable cost for the flight as a whole.

Segment Margin:

The segment margin is obtained by deducting the traceable fixed costs of a segment from contribution margin. It represents the margin that is available after a segment has covered all of its own costs. The segment margin is the best gauge of the long-run profitability of a segment, since it includes only

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