The Move to Activity Based Costing at Super Bakery

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.

A virtual corporation is described as a technology-linked network of companies, suppliers, and customers that are used by a company to outsource non-strategic business functions (Hershkovitz, 2012). The management of Super Bakery, Inc. identified that they could reduce their costs in permanent staff, fixed assets, and working capital (Kimmel,

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.

A virtual corporation is described as a technology-linked network of companies, suppliers, and customers that are used by a company to outsource non-strategic business functions (Hershkovitz, 2012). The management of Super Bakery, Inc. identified that they could reduce their costs in permanent staff, fixed assets, and working capital (Kimmel,

Of those companies which had adopted ABC most had implemented it within one to two years after making their decision to adopt it and the majority of these companies believed that they had achieved five goals:

Glaser Health Products of Ranier Falls, Georgia needs assistance in evaluating and classifying costs in order to implement an activity-based costing system. As stated in the case, these costs will be used for planning and control decisions rather than inventory valuation. The activity-based costing system will provide better allocation of Glaser’s overhead costs rather than a system to look at the cost drivers or the activities that their overhead costs comprise. Glaser’s general structure of an activity-based costing model should consist of cost

Under an ABC system, the allocation of costs to products is achieved through at least four analytical steps. Firstly, costs are grouped into activity levels. Secondly, cost drivers are

Under a traditional system, overhead cost is allocated to an activity based on hours or rates for direct labor or machine usage. However, this approach does not clearly indicate how much overhead cost will be needed in order to complete a job through a particular function. ABC methodology is to be used as an alternative to traditional accounting where a business 's overhead costs (indirect costs such as electrical energy consumption for heating or cooling, or indirect cost associated with marketing) are allocated as a proportion of direct costs, to an activity. This approach is unsatisfactory because there can be cases where two activities could absorb the same direct costs

daily using an original recipe. It was slow-simmered for from four to six hours and served the

The cost of OS-367 may have increased under the ABC system due to the fact that it the cost of the product needed to be increased to cover all the overhead costs. Activity based costing allocates costs to different areas based on the actual product and service in relation to consumption. Traditional cost allocation allows the company to divide the costs by department and utilizes volume- based information to determine the allocations. Therefore, OS-367 may be the only product that needs a certain machine to be produced and the cost of that machine would be allocated to this certain product. In this scenario, it increased the overhead costs and total cost allocated (ABC), thus the cost per unit needed to be increased. The increase in cost per

An organization costing system is a system that helps the management with the strategy planning while the system plays an important role in providing accurate cost information about the products and customers (Curtin, 2006). UPS utilizes the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system. ABC assumes that activities cause costs and that cost objects create the demand for activities (Marx,

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

In today’s economy the business world has changed tremendously with the advances of computer systems, global competition, and innovation in technology. Because of these changes businesses compete to keep their products and services profitable as well as keeping a strong customer base. The main challenges for keeping a business successful are managing the cost of services and products while keeping the company lean for better profits. Super Bakery (SB) maintains steady profits by keeping the core functions within the business and outsourcing additional functions. A discussion explaining Super Bakery ways on how the company manages to maintain a

candidates for ABC. One reason for this is that in the services industry a great

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.