Cost classification; ethics. Paul Howard, the new plant manager of Garden Scapes Manufacturing Plant Number 7, has just reviewed a draft of his year-end financial statements. Howard receives a year-end bonus of 11.5% of the plant’s operating income before tax. The year-end income statement provided by the plant’s controller was disappointing to say the least. After reviewing the numbers, Howard demanded that his controller go back and “work the numbers” again. Howard insisted that if he didn’t see a better operating income number the next time around he would be forced to look for a new controller.
Garden Scapes Manufacturing classifies all costs directly related to the manufacturing of its product as product costs. These costs are inventoried and later expensed as costs of goods sold when the product is sold. All other expenses, including finished-goods warehousing costs of $3,640,000, are classified as period expenses. Howard had suggested that warehousing costs be included as product costs because they are “definitely related to our product.” The company produced 260,000 units during the period and sold 240,000 units.
As the controller reworked the numbers, he discovered that if he included warehousing costs as product costs, he could improve operating income by $280,000. He was also sure these new numbers would make Howard happy.
- 1. Show numerically how operating income would improve by $280,000 just by classifying the preceding costs as product costs instead of period expenses.
- 2. Is Howard correct in his justification that these costs are “definitely related to our product”?
- 3. By how much will Howard profit personally if the controller makes the adjustments in requirement 1?
- 4. What should the plant controller do?
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- Handbrain Inc. is considering a change to activity-based product costing. The company produces two products, cell phones and tablet PCs, in a single production department. The production department is estimated to require 2,000 direct labor hours. The total indirect labor is budgeted to be 200,000. Time records from indirect labor employees revealed that they spent 30% of their time setting up production runs and 70% of their time supporting actual production. The following information about cell phones and tablet PCs was determined from the corporate records: a. Determine the indirect labor cost per unit allocated to cell phones and tablet PCs under a single plantwide factory overhead rate system using the direct labor hours as the allocation base. b. Determine the budgeted activity costs and activity rates for the indirect labor under activity-based costing. Assume two activitiesone for setup and the other for production support. c. Determine the activity cost per unit for indirect labor allocated to each product under activity-based costing. d. Why are the per-unit allocated costs in (a) different from the per-unit activity cost assigned to the products in (c)?arrow_forwardCommunications Jamarcus Bradshaw, plant manager of Georgia Paper Companys papermaking mill, was looking over the cost of production reports for July and August for the Papermaking Department. The reports revealed the following: Jamarcus was concerned about the increased cost per ton from the output of the department. As a result, he asked the plant controller to perform a study to help explain these results. The controller, Leann Brunswick, began the analysis by performing some interviews of key plant personnel in order to understand what the problem might be. Excerpts from an interview with Len Tyson, a paper machine operator, follow: Len: We have two papermaking machines in the department. I have no data, but I think paper machine No. 1 is applying too much pulp and, thus, is wasting both conversion and materials resources. We haven't had repairs on paper machine No. 1 in a while. Maybe this is the problem. Leann: How does too much pulp result in wasted resources? Len: Well, you see, if too much pulp is applied, then we will waste pulp material. The customer will not pay for the extra product; we just use more material to make the product. Also, when there is too much pulp, the machine must be slowed down in order to complete the drying process. This results in additional conversion costs. Leann: Do you have any other suspicions? Len: Well, as you know, we have two productsgreen paper and yellow paper. They are identical except for the color. The color is added to the papermaking process in the paper machine. I think that during August these two color papers have been behaving very differently. I don't have any data, but it just seems as though the amount of waste associated with the green paper has increased. Leann: Why is this? Len: I understand that there has been a change in specifications for the green paper, starting near the beginning of August. This change could be causing the machines to run poorly when making green paper. If this is the case, the cost per ton would increase for green paper. Leann also asked for a database printout providing greater detail on Augusts operating results. September 9 Requested by: Leann Brunswick Papermaking DepartmentAugust detail Prior to preparing a report, Leann resigned from Georgia Paper Company to start her own business. You have been asked to take the data that Leann collected, and write a memo to Jamarcus Bradshaw with a recommendation to management. Your memo should include analysis of the August data to determine whether the paper machine or the paper color explains the increase in the unit cost from July. Include any supporting schedules that are appropriate. Round any calculations to the nearest cent.arrow_forwardTonya 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?arrow_forward
- Hicks Contracting collects and analyzes cost data in order to track the cost of installing decks on new home construction jobs. The following are some of the costs that they incur. Classify these costs as fixed or variable costs and as product or period costs. Lumber used to construct decks ($12.00 per square foot) Carpenter labor used to construct decks ($10 per hour) Construction supervisor salary ($45,000 per year) Depreciation on tools and equipment ($6,000 per year) Selling and administrative expenses ($35,000 per year) Rent on corporate office space ($34,000 per year) Nails, glue, and other materials required to construct deck (varies per job)arrow_forwardSuppose that Kicker had the following sales and cost experience (in thousands of dollars) for May of the current year and for May of the prior year: In May of the prior year, Kicker started an intensive quality program designed to enable it to build original equipment manufacture (OEM) speaker systems for a major automobile company. The program was housed in research and development. In the beginning of the current year, Kickers accounting department exercised tighter control over sales commissions, ensuring that no dubious (e.g., double) payments were made. The increased sales in the current year required additional warehouse space that Kicker rented in town. (Round ratios to four decimal places. Round sales dollars computations to the nearest dollar.) Required: 1. Calculate the contribution margin ratio for May of both years. 2. Calculate the break-even point in sales dollars for both years. 3. Calculate the margin of safety in sales dollars for both years. 4. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION Analyze the differences shown by your calculations in Requirements 1, 2, and 3.arrow_forwardUsing the information in the previous exercises about Marleys Manufacturing, determine the operating income for department B, assuming department A sold department B 1,000 units during the month and department A reduces the selling price to the market price.arrow_forward
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