The firm has a law firm as a clent, Price & Cooper Ltd. Senior Partner Geroge, who is a close personal friend of Michelle read an article about ABC costing for service firms, but did not really understand it. The article indicated that even though there are no inventories for service companies, ABC systems are of great use for service companies. He asked her friend Michelle for a White Paper on this topic, but the firm did not have one prepared. Thomas had asked you to put one together explaining why and how ABC Costing is valuable for Service Firms.

The firm has a law firm as a clent, Price & Cooper Ltd. Senior Partner Geroge, who is a close personal friend of Michelle read an article about ABC costing for service firms, but did not really understand it. The article indicated that even though there are no inventories for service companies, ABC systems are of great use for service companies. He asked her friend Michelle for a White Paper on this topic, but the firm did not have one prepared. Thomas had asked you to put one together explaining why and how ABC Costing is valuable for Service Firms.

Name: 4. The firm has a law firm as a clent, Price & Cooper Ltd. Senior Par
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Description: 4. The firm has a law firm as a clent, Price & Cooper Ltd. Senior Partner Geroge, who is a closepersonal friend of Michelle read an article about ABC costing for service firms, but did not reallyunderstand it. The article indicated that even though

Principles of Accounting Volume 2

19th Edition

ISBN:9781947172609

Author:OpenStax

Publisher:OpenStax

Chapter8: Standard Costs And Variances

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1EA: Moisha is developing material standards for her company. The operations manager wants grade A...

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CORE Fitness Inc. is a high-end athletic gear manufacturer. The production of gear involves many complex and specialized activities that, before now, have lacked of organization or procedural direction. The production manger has considered applying a systematic costing system to improve on efficiency of production, and he wants your advice about activity-based costing(ABC). However, while the production manager wants your advice, he argued that interrupting the existing costing system would be a detriment to the factory. In contrast, the entry-level accountant believes an ABC system would in fact assist the company more effectively in identifying the costs and how to actually regulate the costs. Role play as either yhe production manager or the entry-level accountant to convince the other person to agree with your stance.
Profit Corp. has a subunit classified as a cost center that supports other parts of the firm but has reported costs higher than what the corporate office would like to see. Thus, the manager of this subunit is under pressure to cut operating costs without hurting the perceived quality of services provided. What general recommendations could you give to the manager of this cost center to achieve that goal?
Aaron is a cost accountant for Majik Systems Inc. Martin the VP of marketing has asked Aaron to meet with the represenatives of Majik Systems major competitor to discuss product cost data. Martin indicates that the sharing of data will enable Majik Systems to determin a fair and equitable price for its products. Would it be ethical for Aaron to attend the meeting and share the relevant cost data? Why or Why not?
Aaron McKinney is a cost accountant for Majik Systems Inc. Martin Dodd, Vice President of Marketing, has asked Aaron to meet with representatives of Majik Systems major competitor to discuss product cost data. Martin indicates that the sharing of these data will enable Majik Systems to determine a fair and equitable price for its products. Would it be ethical for Aaron to attend the meeting and share the relevant cost data? Explain your answer.
After completing his analysis, Jacobs shows the results to Charles Clark, the Plum division president. Clark does not like what he sees. “If you show headquarters this analysis, they are going to ask us to phase out the Maximum line, which we have just introduced. This whole costing stuff has been a major problem for us. First Mammoth was not profitable and now Maximum. “Looking at the ABC analysis, I see two problems. First, we do many more activities than the ones you have listed. If you had included all activities, maybe your conclusions would be different. Second, you used number of setups and number of inspections as allocation bases. The numbers would be different had you used setup-hours and inspection-hours instead. I know that measurement problems precluded you from using these other cost-allocation bases, but I believe you ought to make some adjustments to our current numbers to compensate for these issues. I know you can do better. We can’t afford to phase out either…
After completing his analysis, Jacobs shows the results to Charles Clark, the Plum division president. Clark does not like what he sees. “If you show headquarters this analysis, they are going to ask us to phase out the Maximum line, which we have just introduced. This whole costing stuff has been a major problem for us. First Mammoth was not profitable and now Maximum. “Looking at the ABC analysis, I see two problems. First, we do many more activities than the ones you have listed. If you had included all activities, maybe your conclusions would be different. Second, you used number of setups and number of inspections as allocation bases. The numbers would be different had you used setup-hours and inspection-hours instead. I know that measurement problems precluded you from using these other cost-allocation bases, but I believe you ought to make some adjustments to our current numbers to compensate for these issues. I know you can do better. We can’t afford to phase out either…
After completing his analysis, Jacobs shows the results to Charles Clark, the Plum division president. Clark does not like what he sees. “If you show headquarters this analysis, they are going to ask us to phase out the Maximum line, which we have just introduced. This whole costing stuff has been a major problem for us. First Mammoth was not profitable and now Maximum. “Looking at the ABC analysis, I see two problems. First, we do many more activities than the ones you have listed. If you had included all activities, maybe your conclusions would be different. Second, you used number of setups and number of inspections as allocation bases. The numbers would be different had you used setup-hours and inspection-hours instead. I know that measurement problems precluded you from using these other cost-allocation bases, but I believe you ought to make some adjustments to our current numbers to compensate for these issues. I know you can do better. We can’t afford to phase out either…
After completing his analysis, Jacobs shows the results to Charles Clark, the Plum division president. Clark does not like what he sees. “If you show headquarters this analysis, they are going to ask us to phase out the Maximum line, which we have just introduced. This whole costing stuff has been a major problem for us. First Mammoth was not profitable and now Maximum. “Looking at the ABC analysis, I see two problems. First, we do many more activities than the ones you have listed. If you had included all activities, maybe your conclusions would be different. Second, you used number of setups and number of inspections as allocation bases. The numbers would be different had you used setup-hours and inspection-hours instead. I know that measurement problems precluded you from using these other cost-allocation bases, but I believe you ought to make some adjustments to our current numbers to compensate for these issues. I know you can do better. We can’t afford to phase out either…
Dixie Irwin is the department manager for Religious Books, a manufacturer of religious books that are sold through Internet companies. Irwin’s bonus is based on reducing production costs. Irwin has identified a supplier, Cheap Paper, that can provide paper products at a 10% cost reduction. The paper quality is not the same as that of the current paper used in production. If Irwin uses the supplier, she will certainly achieve her personal bonus goals; however, other company goals may be in jeopardy. What is the ethical issue? Identify the key performance issues at risk, and recommend a plan of action for Irwin.
Tonya Martin, CMA and controller or the Parts Division of Gunderson Inc., was meeting with Doug Adams, manager of the division. The topic of discussion was the assignment of overhead costs to jobs and their impact on the divisions pricing decisions. Their conversation was as follows: Tonya: Doug, as you know, about 25% of our business is based on government contracts, with the other 75% based on jobs from private sources won through bidding. During the last several years, our private business has declined. We have been losing more bids than usual. After some careful investigation, I have concluded that we are overpricing some jobs because of improper assignment of overhead costs. Some jobs are also being underpriced. Unfortunately, the jobs being overpriced are coming from our higher-volume, labor-intensive products, so we are losing business. Dong: I think I understand. Jobs associated with our high-volume products are being assigned more overhead than they should be receiving. Then when we add our standard 40% markup, we end up with a higher price than our competitors, who assign costs more accurately. Tonya: Exactly. We have two producing departments, one labor-intensive and the other machine-intensive. The labor-intensive department generates much less overhead than the machine-intensive department. Furthermore, virtually all of our high-volume jobs are labor-intensive. We have been using a plantwide rate based on direct labor hours to assign overhead to all jobs. As a result, the high-volume, labor-intensive jobs receive a greater share of the machine-intensive departments overhead than they deserve. This problem can be greatly alleviated by switching to departmental overhead rates. For example, an average high-volume job would be assigned 100,000 of overhead using a plantwide rate and only 70,000 using departmental rates. The change would lower our bidding price on high-volume jobs by an average of 42,000 per job. By increasing the accuracy of our product costing, we can make better pricing decisions and win back much of our private-sector business. Doug: Sounds good. When can you implement the change in overhead rates? Tonya: It wont take long. I can have the new system working within four to six weekscertainly by the start of the new fiscal year. Doug: Hold it. I just thought of a possible complication. As I recall, most of our government contract work is done in the labor-intensive department. This new overhead assignment scheme will push down the cost on the government jobs, and we will lose revenues. They pay us full cost plus our standard markup. This business is not threatened by our current costing procedures, but we cant switch our rates for only the private business. Government auditors would question the lack of consistency in our costing procedures. Tonya: You do have a point. I thought of this issue also. According to my estimates, we will gain more revenues from the private sector than we will lose from our government contracts. Besides, the costs of our government jobs are distorted. In effect, we are overcharging the government. Doug: They dont know that and never would unless we switch our overhead assignment procedures. I think I have the solution. Officially, lets keep our plantwide overhead rate. All of the official records will reflect this overhead costing approach for both our private and government business. Unofficially. I want you to develop a separate set of books that can be used to generate the information we need to prepare competitive bids for our private-sector business. Required: 1. Do you believe that the solution proposed by Doug is ethical? Explain. 2. Suppose that Tonya decides that Dougs solution is not right and objects strongly. Further suppose that, despite Tonyas objections, Doug insists strongly on implementing the action. What should Tonya do?
In The Trouble with Outsourcing, a Schumpeter column in The Economist, there is a statement of advice to companies, who outsource products or services: they need to think harder about what is their core business, and what is peripheral. What types of problems do you think they are talking about? In your answer, present at least five (5) problems that companies should consider when outsourcing products or services.
Moisha is developing material standards for her company. The operations manager wants grade A widgets because they are the easiest to work with and are the quality the customers want. Grade B will not work because customers do not want the lower grade, and it takes more time to assemble the product than with grade A materials. Moisha calls several suppliers to get prices for the widget. All are within $0.05 of each other. Since they will use millions of widgets, she decides that the $0.05 difference is important. The supplier who has the lowest price is known for delivering late and low-quality materials. Moisha decides to use the supplier who is $0.02 more but delivers on time and at the right quality. This supplier charges $0.48 per widget. Each unit of product requires four widgets. What is the standard cost per unit for widgets?