Cost Data for Managerial Purposes
KC Services provides landscaping services in Edison. Kate Chen, the owner, is concerned about the recent losses the company has incurred and is considering dropping its lawn services, which she feels are marginal to the company’s business. She estimates that doing so will result in lost revenues of $150,000 per year (including the lost tree business from customers who use the company for both services). The present manager will continue to supervise the tree services with no reduction in salary. Without the lawn business, Kate estimates that the company will save 15 percent of the equipment leases, labor, and other costs. She also expects to save 20 percent on rent and utilities.
Required
- a. Prepare a report of the differential costs and revenues if the lawn service is discontinued. (Hint: Use the format of Exhibit 1.3.)
- b. Should Kate discontinue the lawn service?
- c. Are there factors other than the differential costs and revenues that Kate should consider?
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Fundamentals Of Cost Accounting (6th Edition)
- Cost Classification, Income Statement Gateway Construction Company, run by Jack Gateway, employs 25 to 30 people as subcontractors for laying gas, water, and sewage pipelines. Most of Gateways work comes from contracts with city and state agencies in Nebraska. The companys sales volume averages 3 million, and profits vary between 0 and 10% of sales. Sales and profits have been somewhat below average for the past 3 years due to a recession and intense competition. Because of this competition, Jack constantly reviews the prices that other companies bid for jobs. When a bid is lost, he analyzes the reasons for the differences between his bid and that of his competitors and uses this information to increase the competitiveness of future bids. Jack believes that Gateways current accounting system is deficient. Currently, all expenses are simply deducted from revenues to arrive at operating income. No effort is made to distinguish among the costs of laying pipe, obtaining contracts, and administering the company. Yet all bids are based on the costs of laying pipe. With these thoughts in mind, Jack looked more carefully at the income statement for the previous year (see below). First, he noted that jobs were priced on the basis of equipment hours, with an average price of 165 per equipment hour. However, when it came to classifying and assigning costs, he needed some help. One thing that really puzzled him was how to classify his own 114,000 salary. About half of his time was spent in bidding and securing contracts, and the other half was spent in general administrative matters. Required: 1. Classify the costs in the income statement as (1) costs of laying pipe (production costs), (2) costs of securing contracts (selling costs), or (3) costs of general administration. For production costs, identify direct materials, direct labor, and overhead costs. The company never has significant work in process (most jobs are started and completed within a day). 2. Assume that a significant driver is equipment hours. Identify the expenses that would likely be traced to jobs using this driver. Explain why you feel these costs are traceable using equipment hours. What is the cost per equipment hour for these traceable costs?arrow_forwardBannister Company, an electronics firm, buys circuit boards and manually inserts various electronic devices into the printed circuit board. Bannister sells its products to original equipment manufacturers. Profits for the last two years have been less than expected. Mandy Confer, owner of Bannister, was convinced that her firm needed to adopt a revenue growth and cost reduction strategy to increase overall profits. After a careful review of her firms condition, Mandy realized that the main obstacle for increasing revenues and reducing costs was the high defect rate of her products (a 6 percent reject rate). She was certain that revenues would grow if the defect rate was reduced dramatically. Costs would also decline as there would be fewer rejects and less rework. By decreasing the defect rate, customer satisfaction would increase, causing, in turn, an increase in market share. Mandy also felt that the following actions were needed to help ensure the success of the revenue growth and cost reduction strategy: a. Improve the soldering capabilities by sending employees to an outside course. b. Redesign the insertion process to eliminate some of the common mistakes. c. Improve the procurement process by selecting suppliers that provide higher-quality circuit boards. Required: 1. State the revenue growth and cost reduction strategy using a series of cause-and-effect relationships expressed as if-then statements. 2. Illustrate the strategy using a strategy map. 3. Explain how the revenue growth strategy can be tested. In your explanation, discuss the role of lead and lag measures, targets, and double-loop feedback.arrow_forwardJadlow Company produces handcrafted leather purses. Virtually all of the manufacturing cost consists of materials and labor. Over the past several years, profits have been declining because the cost of the two major inputs has been increasing. Janice Jadlow, the president of the company, has indicated that the price of the purses cannot be increased; thus, the only way to improve or at least stabilize profits is to increase overall productivity. At the beginning of 20x2, Janice implemented a new cutting and assembly process that promised less materials waste and a faster production time. At the end of 20x2, Janice wants to know how much profits have changed from the prior year because of the new process. In order to provide this information to Janice, the controller of the company gathered the following data: Required: 1. Compute the productivity profile for each year. Comment on the effectiveness of the new production process. 2. Compute the increase in profits attributable to increased productivity. 3. Calculate the price-recovery component, and comment on its meaning.arrow_forward
- Suspicious Acquisition of Data, Ethical Issues Bill Lewis, manager of the Thomas Electronics Division, called a meeting with his controller, Brindon Peterson, and his marketing manager, Patty Fritz. The following is a transcript of the conversation that took place during the meeting: Bill: Brindon, the variable costing system that you developed has proved to be a big plus for our division. Our success in winning bids has increased, and as a result our revenues have increased by 25%. However, if we intend to meet this years profit targets, we are going to need something extraam I right, Patty? Patty: Absolutely. While we have been able to win more bids, we still are losing too many, particularly to our major competitor, Kilborn Electronics. If we knew more about their bidding strategy, we could be more successful at competing with them. Brindon: Would knowing their variable costs help? Patty: Certainly. It would give me their minimum price. With that knowledge, Im sure that we could find a way to beat them on several jobs, particularly on those jobs where we are at least as efficient. It would also help us to identify where we are not cost competitive. With this information, we might be able to find ways to increase our efficiency. Brindon: Well, I have good news. Ive been talking with Carl Penobscot, Kilborns assistant controller. Carl doesnt feel appreciated by Kilborn and wants to make a change. He could easily fit into our team here. Plus, Carl has been preparing for a job switch by quietly copying Kilborns accounting files and records. Hes already given me some data that reveal bids that Kilborn made on several jobs. If we can come to a satisfactory agreement with Carl, hell bring the rest of the information with him. Well easily be able to figure out Kilborns prospective bids and find ways to beat them. Besides, I could use another accountant on my staff. Bill, would you authorize my immediate hiring of Carl with a favorable compensation package? Bill: I know that you need more staff, Brindon, but is this the right thing to do? It sounds like Carl is stealing those files, and surely Kilborn considers this information confidential. I have real ethical and legal concerns about this. Why dont we meet with Laurie, our attorney, and determine any legal problems? Required: 1. Is Carls behavior ethical? What would Kilborn think? 2. Is Bill correct in supposing that there are ethical and/or legal problems involved with the hiring of Carl? (Reread the section on corporate codes of conduct in Chapter 1.) What would you do if you were Bill? Explain.arrow_forwardCost Separation About 8 years ago, Kicker faced the problem of rapidly increasing costs associated with workplace accidents. The costs included the following: A safety program was implemented with the following features: hiring a safety director, new employee orientation, stretching required four times a day, and systematic monitoring of adherence to the program by directors and supervisors. A year later, the indicators were as follows: Required: 1. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Discuss the safety-related costs listed. Are they variable or fixed with respect to speakers sold? With respect to other independent variables (describe)? 2. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Did the safety program pay for itself? Discuss your reasoning.arrow_forwardArtisan Metalworks has a bottleneck in their production that occurs within the engraving department. Jamal Moore, the COO, is considering hiring an extra worker, whose salary will be $55,000 per year, to solve the problem. With this extra worker, the company could produce and sell 3,000 more units per year. Currently, the selling price per unit is $25 and the cost per unit is $7.85. Using the information provided, calculate the annual financial impact of hiring the extra worker.arrow_forward
- Elite services both residential and commercial clients. Management believes that the commercial sector has more growth opportunities and is considering dropping the residential services. Twenty employees worked a total of 20,000 hours last year, 13,000 of which was on the residential jobs. Wages were $25 an hour and any materials used are included in overhead as supplies. All overhead is allocated on the basis of labor hours worked which is also the basis for charging customers. Because of increased competitions for commercial accounts, Elite charges $60 per hour for residential work but can only charge $45 per hour for commercial work. REQUIRED: If overhead for the year was $205,000, with 20,000 hours worked last year, what were the profits of the residential and commercial services using labor hours as the allocation base? RESIDENTIAL COMMERCIAL Revenues Less: Direct Labor Cost Overhead 205,000 205,000 Profit earned last year…arrow_forwardEquipment replacement decisions and performance evaluation. Susan Smith manages the Wexford plant of Sanchez Manufacturing. A representative of Darnell Engineering approaches Smith about replacing a large piece of manufacturing equipment that Sanchez uses in its process with a more efficient model. While the representative made some compelling arguments in favor of replacing the 3-year-old equipment, Smith is hesitant. Smith is hoping to be promoted next year to manager of the larger Detroit plant, and she knows that the accrual-basis net operating income of the Wexford plant will be evaluated closely as part of the promotion decision. The following information is available concerning the equipment replacement decision: Sanchez uses straight-line depreciation on all equipment. Annual depreciation expense for the old machine is $180,000 and will be $270,000 on the new machine if it is acquired. For simplicity, ignore income taxes and the time value of money.arrow_forwardMaking decisions about dropping a product Members of the board of directors or Security Check have received the following operating income data for the year ended May 31, 2018: Members of my board are surprised that the industrial systems product line is not profitable. They commission a study to determine whether the company should drop the line. Company accountants estimate that dropping industrial systems will decrease the fixed cost of goods sold by $580,000 and decrease fixed selling and administrative expenses by $12,000. Requirements Prepare a differential analysis to show whether Security Check should drop the industrial systems product line. Prepare contribution margin income statements to show Security Check’s total operating income under the two alternatives: (a) with the industrial systems line and (b) without the line. Compare the difference between the two alternatives’ income numbers to your answer to Requirement 1. What have you learned from the comparison in…arrow_forward
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