Concept explainers
Goal incongruence and
One of the machines that the patio furniture division uses to manufacture the furniture is rather old, and the manager must decide whether to replace it. The new machine would cost 335,000 and would last 10 years. It would have no salvage value. The old machine is fully
- 1. Should Comfy Corporation replace the machine? Why or why not?
Required
- 2. Assume that “investment” is defined as average net long-term assets (that is, after depreciation) during the year. Compute the project’s ROI for each of its first five years. If the patio furniture manager is interested in maximizing his bonus, would he replace the machine before he retires? Why or why not?
- 3. What can Comfy do to entice the manager to replace the machine before retiring?
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COST ACCOUNTING W18 CUSTOM W/ACCESS
- Variety Artisans has a bottleneck in their production that occurs within the engraving department. Arjun Naipul, the COO, is considering hiring an extra worker, whose salary will be $45,000 per year, to solve the problem. With this extra worker, the company could produce and sell 3,500 more units per year. Currently, the selling price per unit is $18 and the cost per unit is $5.85. Using the information provided, calculate the annual financial impact of hiring the extra worker.arrow_forwardAt Stardust Gems, a faux gem and jewelry company, the setting department is a bottleneck. The company is considering hiring an extra worker, whose salary will be $67,000 per year, to ease the problem. Using the extra worker, the company will be able to produce and sell 9,000 more units per year. The selling price per unit is $20. The cost per unit currently is $15.85 as shown: What is the annual financial impact of hiring the extra worker for the bottleneck process?arrow_forwardKeleher Industries manufactures pet doors and sells them directly to the consumer via their web site. The marketing manager believes that if the company invests in new software, they will increase their sales by 10%. The new software will increase fixed costs by $400 per month. Prepare a forecasted contribution margin income statement for Keleher Industries reflecting the new software cost and associated increase in sales. The previous annual statement is as follows:arrow_forward
- Katayama Company produces a variety of products. One division makes neoprene wetsuits. The divisions projected income statement for the coming year is as follows: Required: 1. Compute the contribution margin per unit, and calculate the break-even point in units. Repeat, using the contribution margin ratio. 2. The divisional manager has decided to increase the advertising budget by 140,000 and cut the average selling price to 200. These actions will increase sales revenues by 1 million. Will this improve the divisions financial situation? Prepare a new income statement to support your answer. 3. Suppose sales revenues exceed the estimated amount on the income statement by 612,000. Without preparing a new income statement, determine by how much profits are underestimated. 4. How many units must be sold to earn an after-tax profit of 1.254 million? Assume a tax rate of 34 percent. (Round your answer up to the next whole unit.) 5. Compute the margin of safety in dollars based on the given income statement. 6. Compute the operating leverage based on the given income statement. (Round to three significant digits.) If sales revenues are 20 percent greater than expected, what is the percentage increase in profits?arrow_forwardBrahma Industries sells vinyl replacement windows to home improvement retailers nationwide. The national sales manager believes that if they invest an additional $25,000 in advertising, they would increase sales volume by 10,000 units. Prepare a forecasted contribution margin income statement for Brahma if they incur the additional advertising costs, using this information:arrow_forwardAc Gems in the Rough, a jewelry company, the engraving department is a bottleneck. The company is considering hiring an extra worker, whose salary will be $56,000 per year, to ease the problem. Using the extra worker, the company will be able to engrave 8,000 more units per year. The selling price per unit is $16. The cost per unit currently is $11.85 as shown: What is the annual financial impact of hiring the extra worker for the bottleneck process?arrow_forward
- Nico Parts, Inc., produces electronic products with short life cycles (of less than two years). Development has to be rapid, and the profitability of the products is tied strongly to the ability to find designs that will keep production and logistics costs low. Recently, management has also decided that post-purchase costs are important in design decisions. Last month, a proposal for a new product was presented to management. The total market was projected at 200,000 units (for the two-year period). The proposed selling price was 130 per unit. At this price, market share was expected to be 25 percent. The manufacturing and logistics costs were estimated to be 120 per unit. Upon reviewing the projected figures, Brian Metcalf, president of Nico, called in his chief design engineer, Mark Williams, and his marketing manager, Cathy McCourt. The following conversation was recorded: BRIAN: Mark, as you know, we agreed that a profit of 15 per unit is needed for this new product. Also, as I look at the projected market share, 25 percent isnt acceptable. Total profits need to be increased. Cathy, what suggestions do you have? CATHY: Simple. Decrease the selling price to 125 and we expand our market share to 35 percent. To increase total profits, however, we need some cost reductions as well. BRIAN: Youre right. However, keep in mind that I do not want to earn a profit that is less than 15 per unit. MARK: Does that 15 per unit factor in preproduction costs? You know we have already spent 100,000 on developing this product. To lower costs will require more expenditure on development. BRIAN: Good point. No, the projected cost of 120 does not include the 100,000 we have already spent. I do want a design that will provide a 15-per-unit profit, including consideration of preproduction costs. CATHY: I might mention that post-purchase costs are important as well. The current design will impose about 10 per unit for using, maintaining, and disposing our product. Thats about the same as our competitors. If we can reduce that cost to about 5 per unit by designing a better product, we could probably capture about 50 percent of the market. I have just completed a marketing survey at Marks request and have found out that the current design has two features not valued by potential customers. These two features have a projected cost of 6 per unit. However, the price consumers are willing to pay for the product is the same with or without the features. Required: 1. Calculate the target cost associated with the initial 25 percent market share. Does the initial design meet this target? Now calculate the total life-cycle profit that the current (initial) design offers (including preproduction costs). 2. Assume that the two features that are apparently not valued by consumers will be eliminated. Also assume that the selling price is lowered to 125. a. Calculate the target cost for the 125 price and 35 percent market share. b. How much more cost reduction is needed? c. What are the total life-cycle profits now projected for the new product? d. Describe the three general approaches that Nico can take to reduce the projected cost to this new target. Of the three approaches, which is likely to produce the most reduction? 3. Suppose that the Engineering Department has two new designs: Design A and Design B. Both designs eliminate the two nonvalued features. Both designs also reduce production and logistics costs by an additional 8 per unit. Design A, however, leaves post-purchase costs at 10 per unit, while Design B reduces post-purchase costs to 4 per unit. Developing and testing Design A costs an additional 150,000, while Design B costs an additional 300,000. Assuming a price of 125, calculate the total life-cycle profits under each design. Which would you choose? Explain. What if the design you chose cost an additional 500,000 instead of 150,000 or 300,000? Would this have changed your decision? 4. Refer to Requirement 3. For every extra dollar spent on preproduction activities, how much benefit was generated? What does this say about the importance of knowing the linkages between preproduction activities and later activities?arrow_forwardDimitri Designs has capacity to produce 30,000 desk chairs per year and is currently selling all 30,000 for $240 each. Country Enterprises has approached Dimitri to buy 800 chairs for $210 each. Dimitris normal variable cost is $165 per chair, including $50 per unit in direct labor per chair. Dimitri can produce the special order on an overtime shift, which means that direct labor would be paid overtime at 150% of the normal pay rate. The annual fixed costs will be unaffected by the special order and the contract will not disrupt any of Dimitris other operations. What will be the impact on profits of accepting the order?arrow_forwardBienestar, Inc., has two plants that manufacture a line of wheelchairs. One is located in Kansas City, and the other in Tulsa. Each plant is set up as a profit center. During the past year, both plants sold their tilt wheelchair model for 1,620. Sales volume averages 20,000 units per year in each plant. Recently, the Kansas City plant reduced the price of the tilt model to 1,440. Discussion with the Kansas City manager revealed that the price reduction was possible because the plant had reduced its manufacturing and selling costs by reducing what was called non-value-added costs. The Kansas City manufacturing and selling costs for the tilt model were 1,260 per unit. The Kansas City manager offered to loan the Tulsa plant his cost accounting manager to help it achieve similar results. The Tulsa plant manager readily agreed, knowing that his plant must keep pacenot only with the Kansas City plant but also with competitors. A local competitor had also reduced its price on a similar model, and Tulsas marketing manager had indicated that the price must be matched or sales would drop dramatically. In fact, the marketing manager suggested that if the price were dropped to 1,404 by the end of the year, the plant could expand its share of the market by 20 percent. The plant manager agreed but insisted that the current profit per unit must be maintained. He also wants to know if the plant can at least match the 1,260 per-unit cost of the Kansas City plant and if the plant can achieve the cost reduction using the approach of the Kansas City plant. The plant controller and the Kansas City cost accounting manager have assembled the following data for the most recent year. The actual cost of inputs, their value-added (ideal) quantity levels, and the actual quantity levels are provided (for production of 20,000 units). Assume there is no difference between actual prices of activity units and standard prices. Required: 1. Calculate the target cost for expanding the Tulsa plants market share by 20 percent, assuming that the per-unit profitability is maintained as requested by the plant manager. 2. Calculate the non-value-added cost per unit. Assuming that non-value-added costs can be reduced to zero, can the Tulsa plant match the Kansas City per-unit cost? Can the target cost for expanding market share be achieved? What actions would you take if you were the plant manager? 3. Describe the role that benchmarking played in the effort of the Tulsa plant to protect and improve its competitive position.arrow_forward
- I know that its the thing to do, insisted Pamela Kincaid, vice president of finance for Colgate Manufacturing. If we are going to be competitive, we need to build this completely automated plant. Im not so sure, replied Bill Thomas, CEO of Colgate. The savings from labor reductions and increased productivity are only 4 million per year. The price tag for this factoryand its a small oneis 45 million. That gives a payback period of more than 11 years. Thats a long time to put the companys money at risk. Yeah, but youre overlooking the savings that well get from the increase in quality, interjected John Simpson, production manager. With this system, we can decrease our waste and our rework time significantly. Those savings are worth another million dollars per year. Another million will only cut the payback to about 9 years, retorted Bill. Ron, youre the marketing managerdo you have any insights? Well, there are other factors to consider, such as service quality and market share. I think that increasing our product quality and improving our delivery service will make us a lot more competitive. I know for a fact that two of our competitors have decided against automation. Thatll give us a shot at their customers, provided our product is of higher quality and we can deliver it faster. I estimate that itll increase our net cash benefits by another 2.4 million. Wow! Now thats impressive, Bill exclaimed, nearly convinced. The payback is now getting down to a reasonable level. I agree, said Pamela, but we do need to be sure that its a sound investment. I know that estimates for construction of the facility have gone as high as 48 million. I also know that the expected residual value, after the 20 years of service we expect to get, is 5 million. I think I had better see if this project can cover our 14% cost of capital. Now wait a minute, Pamela, Bill demanded. You know that I usually insist on a 20% rate of return, especially for a project of this magnitude. Required: 1. Compute the NPV of the project by using the original savings and investment figures. Calculate by using discount rates of 14% and 20%. Include salvage value in the computation. 2. Compute the NPV of the project using the additional benefits noted by the production and marketing managers. Also, use the original cost estimate of 45 million. Again, calculate for both possible discount rates. 3. Compute the NPV of the project using all estimates of cash flows, including the possible initial outlay of 48 million. Calculate by using discount rates of 14% and 20%. 4. CONCEPTUAL CONNECTION If you were making the decision, what would you do? Explain.arrow_forwardShelby Industries has a capacity to produce 45.000 oak shelves per year and is currently selling 40,000 shelves for $32 each. Martin Hardwoods has approached Shelby about buying 1,200 shelves for a new project and is willing to pay $26 each. The shelves can be packaged in bulk; this saves Shelby $1.50 per shelf compared to the normal packaging cost. Shelves have a unit variable cost of $27 with fixed costs of $350,000. Because the shelves dont require packaging, the unit variable costs for the special order will drop from $27 per shelf to $25.50 per shelf. Shelby has enough idle capacity to accept the contract. What is the minimum price per shelf that Shelby should accept for this special order?arrow_forwardCost 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_forward
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