Concept explainers
Activity-based costing and product cost distortion
The management of Four Finger Appliance Company in Exercise 14 has asked you to u.sc activity-based costing instead of direct labor hours to allocate
A. Determine the three activity rates (assembly, test and pack, and setup).
B. Determine the total factory overhead and factory overhead per unit allocated to each product using the activity rates in (A).
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Chapter 18 Solutions
Financial & Managerial Accounting
- Activity-based costing: selling and administrative expenses Jungle Junior Company manufactures and sells outdoor play equipment. Jungle Junior uses activity-based costing to determine the cost of the sales order processing and the customer return activity. The sales order processing activity has an activity rate of 20 per sales order, and the customer return activity has an activity rate of 100 per return. Jungle Junior sold 2,500 swing sets, which consisted of 750 orders and 80 returns. Determine (A) the total and (B) the per-unit sales order processing and customer return activity cost for swing sets.arrow_forwardEvans, Inc., has a unit-based costing system. Evanss Miami plant produces 10 different electronic products. The demand for each product is about the same. Although they differ in complexity, each product uses about the same labor time and materials. The plant has used direct labor hours for years to assign overhead to products. To help design engineers understand the assumed cost relationships, the Cost Accounting Department developed the following cost equation. (The equation describes the relationship between total manufacturing costs and direct labor hours; the equation is supported by a coefficient of determination of 60 percent.) Y=5,000,000+30X,whereX=directlaborhours The variable rate of 30 is broken down as follows: Because of competitive pressures, product engineering was given the charge to redesign products to reduce the total cost of manufacturing. Using the above cost relationships, product engineering adopted the strategy of redesigning to reduce direct labor content. As each design was completed, an engineering change order was cut, triggering a series of events such as design approval, vendor selection, bill of materials update, redrawing of schematic, test runs, changes in setup procedures, development of new inspection procedures, and so on. After one year of design changes, the normal volume of direct labor was reduced from 250,000 hours to 200,000 hours, with the same number of products being produced. Although each product differs in its labor content, the redesign efforts reduced the labor content for all products. On average, the labor content per unit of product dropped from 1.25 hours per unit to one hour per unit. Fixed overhead, however, increased from 5,000,000 to 6,600,000 per year. Suppose that a consultant was hired to explain the increase in fixed overhead costs. The consultants study revealed that the 30 per hour rate captured the unit-level variable costs; however, the cost behavior of other activities was quite different. For example, setting up equipment is a step-fixed cost, where each step is 2,000 setup hours, costing 90,000. The study also revealed that the cost of receiving goods is a function of the number of different components. This activity has a variable cost of 2,000 per component type and a fixed cost that follows a step-cost pattern. The step is defined by 20 components with a cost of 50,000 per step. Assume also that the consultant indicated that the design adopted by the engineers increased the demand for setups from 20,000 setup hours to 40,000 setup hours and the number of different components from 100 to 250. The demand for other non-unit-level activities remained unchanged. The consultant also recommended that management take a look at a rejected design for its products. This rejected design increased direct labor content from 250,000 hours to 260,000 hours, decreased the demand for setups from 20,000 hours to 10,000 hours, and decreased the demand for purchasing from 100 component types to 75 component types, while the demand for all other activities remained unchanged. Required: 1. Using normal volume, compute the manufacturing cost per labor hour before the year of design changes. What is the cost per unit of an average product? 2. Using normal volume after the one year of design changes, compute the manufacturing cost per hour. What is the cost per unit of an average product? 3. Before considering the consultants study, what do you think is the most likely explanation for the failure of the design changes to reduce manufacturing costs? Now use the information from the consultants study to explain the increase in the average cost per unit of product. What changes would you suggest to improve Evanss efforts to reduce costs? 4. Explain why the consultant recommended a second look at a rejected design. Provide computational support. What does this tell you about the strategic importance of cost management?arrow_forwardMedical Tape makes two products: Generic and Label. It estimates it will produce 423,694 units of Generic and 652,200 of Label, and the overhead for each of its cost pools is as follows: It has also estimated the activities for each cost driver as follows: How much is the overhead allocated to each unit of Generic and Label?arrow_forward
- Friedman Company uses JIT manufacturing. There are several manufacturing cells set up within one of its factories. One of the cells makes stands for flat-screen televisions. The cost of production for the month of April is given below. During May, 30,000 stands were produced and sold. Required: 1. Explain why process costing can be used for computing the cost of production for the stands. 2. Calculate the cost per unit for a stand. 3. Explain how activity-based costing can be used to determine the overhead assigned to the cell.arrow_forwardYoung Company is beginning operations and is considering three alternatives to allocate manufacturing overhead to individual units produced. Young can use a plantwide rate, departmental rates, or activity-based costing. Young will produce many types of products in its single plant, and not all products will be processed through all departments. In which one of the following independent situations would reported net income for the first year be the same regardless of which overhead allocation method had been selected? a. All production costs approach those costs that were budgeted. b. The sales mix does not vary from the mix that was budgeted. c. All manufacturing overhead is a fixed cost. d. All ending inventory balances are zero.arrow_forwardWrappers Tape makes two products: Simple and Removable. It estimates it will produce 369,991 units of Simple and 146,100 of Removable, and the overhead for each of its cost pools is as follows: It has also estimated the activities for each cost driver as follows: Â How much is the overhead allocated to each unit of Simple and Removable?arrow_forward
- Mott Company recently implemented a JIT manufacturing system. After one year of operation, Heidi Burrows, president of the company, wanted to compare product cost under the JIT system with product cost under the old system. Motts two products are weed eaters and lawn edgers. The unit prime costs under the old system are as follows: Under the old manufacturing system, the company operated three service centers and two production departments. Overhead was applied using departmental overhead rates. The direct overhead costs associated with each department for the year preceding the installation of JIT are as follows: Under the old system, the overhead costs of the service departments were allocated directly to the producing departments and then to the products passing through them. (Both products passed through each producing department.) The overhead rate for the Machining Department was based on machine hours, and the overhead rate for assembly was based on direct labor hours. During the last year of operations for the old system, the Machining Department used 80,000 machine hours, and the Assembly Department used 20,000 direct labor hours. Each weed eater required 1.0 machine hour in Machining and 0.25 direct labor hour in Assembly. Each lawn edger required 2.0 machine hours in Machining and 0.5 hour in Assembly. Bases for allocation of the service costs are as follows: Upon implementing JIT, a manufacturing cell for each product was created to replace the departmental structure. Each cell occupied 40,000 square feet. Maintenance and materials handling were both decentralized to the cell level. Essentially, cell workers were trained to operate the machines in each cell, assemble the components, maintain the machines, and move the partially completed units from one point to the next within the cell. During the first year of the JIT system, the company produced and sold 20,000 weed eaters and 30,000 lawn edgers. This output was identical to that for the last year of operations under the old system. The following costs have been assigned to the manufacturing cells: Required: 1. Compute the unit cost for each product under the old manufacturing system. 2. Compute the unit cost for each product under the JIT system. 3. Which of the unit costs is more accurate? Explain. Include in your explanation a discussion of how the computational approaches differ. 4. Calculate the decrease in overhead costs under JIT, and provide some possible reasons that explain the decrease.arrow_forwardStacks manufactures two different levels of hockey sticks: the Standard and the Slap Shot. The total overhead of $600,000 has traditionally been allocated by direct labor hours, with 400,000 hours for the Standard and 200.000 hours for the Slap Shot. After analyzing and assigning costs to two cost pools, it was determined that machine hours is estimated to have $450.000 of overhead, with 30,000 hours used on the Standard product and 15,000 hours used on the Slap Shot product. It was also estimated that the inspection cost pool would have $150,000 of overhead, with 25,000 hours for the Standard and 5,000 hours for the Slap Shot. What is the overhead rate per product, under traditional and under ABC costing?arrow_forwardTri-bikes manufactures two different levels of bicycles: the Standard and the Extreme. The total overhead of $300,000 has traditionally been allocated by direct labor hours, with 150.000 hours for the Standard and 50,000 hours for the Extreme. After analyzing and assigning costs to two cost pools, it was determined that machine hours is estimated to have $200,000 of overhead, with 4,000 hours used on the Standard product and 1,000 hours used on the Extreme product. k was also estimated that the setup cost pool would have $100000 of overhead, with 1,000 hours for the Standard and 1,500 hours for the Extreme. What is the overhead rate per product, under traditional and under ABC costing?arrow_forward
- 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_forwardCaseys Kitchens makes two types of food smokers: Gas and Electric. The company expects to manufacture 20,000 units of Gas smokers, which have a per-unit direct material cost of $15 and a per-unit direct labor cost of $25. k also expects to manufacture 50,000 units of Electric smokers, which have a per-unit material cost of $20 and a per-unit direct labor cost of $45. Historically, it has used the traditional allocation method and applied overhead at a rate of $125 per machine hour. It was determined that there were three cost pools, and the overhead for each cost pool is as follows: The cost driver for each cost pool and its expected activity is as follows: A. What is the per-unit cost for each product under the traditional allocation method? B. What is the per-unit cost for each product under ABC costing? C. Compared to ABC costing, was each products overhead under- or over applied? D. How much was overhead under- or over applied for each product?arrow_forwardBumblebee Mobiles manufactures a line of cell phones. The management has identified the following overhead costs and related cost drivers for the coming year. The following were incurred in manufacturing two of their cell phones, Bubble and Burst, during the first quarter. REQUIREMENT Review the worksheet called ABC that follows these requirements. You have been asked to determine the cost of each product using an activity-based cost system. Note that the problem information is already entered into the Data Section of the ABC worksheet.arrow_forward
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