Willitte Pharmaceuticals manufactures an over-the-counter allergy medication. The company sells both large commercial containers of 1,000 capsules to health care facilities and travel packs of 20 capsules to shops in airports, train stations, and hotels. The following information has been developed to determine if an activity-based costing system would be beneficial:

Activity Estimated Estimated Quantity

Indirect Cost Allocation Base of Allocation Base

Materials handling \( 95,000 Number of kilos 19,000 kilos

Packaging 200,000 Number of machine hours 5,000 hours

Quality assurance 112,500 Number of samples 1,875 samples

Total indirect costs \) 407,500

Actual production information includes the following:

Commercial Containers Travel Packs

Units produced 2,400 containers 50,000 packs

Weight in kilos 9,600 5,000

Machine hours 1,680 500

Number of samples 240 750

Requirements

4. Compare the indirect activity-based costs per unit to the indirect costs per unit from the traditional system. How have the unit costs changed? Explain why the costs changed.

Short Answer

Expert verified

The traditional method allocated costs on a uniform basis but the activity method allocates them based on the activity and predetermined rate for them. So, there would be a difference in unit cost between the two methods.

Step by step solution

01

Comparison of indirect cost per unit by activity-based method and traditional method

By comparing the figures, it can be noticed that the indirect cost per unit is highest under activity-based costing.

02

Why unit cost changed under both methods

There is a difference between the unit cost under both methods. The reason is that under the traditional method the cost is allocated based on a uniform allocation basis. So, this system may not allocate costs fairly and some products or processes may be charged with higher costs.

But under the activity-based method, first of all, indirect costs are segregated into different activities, and then diffract activities’ costs are allocated based on some allocation base. In this, each product or process is charged with a fair amount of cost and there is less chance of having a larger disparity among product costs.

This is the reason for the unit cost change under both methods.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Refer to Exercise E19-20. For 2019, Eason’s managers have decided to use the same indirect manufacturing costs per wheel rim that they computed in 2018 using activitybasedn costing. In addition to the unit indirect manufacturing costs, the following data are expected for the company’s standard and deluxe models for 2019:

Standard Deluxe

Sales price \( 800.00 \) 940.00

Direct materials 31.00 48.00

Direct labor 45.00 52.00

Because of limited machine hour capacity, Eason can produce either2,000 standard rims or2,000 deluxe rims.

Requirements

3. Which course of action will yield more income for Eason?

Stegall, Inc. manufactures motor scooters. For each of the following examples of quality costs, indicate which of the following quality cost categories each example represents: prevention costs, appraisal costs, internal failure costs, or external failure costs.

1. Preventive maintenance on machinery

2. Direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead incurred to rework a defective scooter that is detected in-house through inspection

3. Lost profits from lost sales if the company’s reputation is hurt because customers previously purchased a poor-quality scooter

4. Cost of inspecting raw materials, such as chassis and wheels

5. Working with suppliers to achieve on-time delivery of defect-free raw materials

6. Cost of warranty repairs on a scooter that malfunctions at a customer’s location

7. Costs of testing durability of vinyl

8. Cost to reinspect reworked scooters

What is a just-in-time management system?

Martin, Inc. manufactures bookcases and uses an activity-based costing system. Martin’s activity areas and related data follow:

Activity

Budgeted Cost of Activity

Allocation Base

Predetermined Overhead Allocation Rate

Materials handling

\( 230,000

Number of parts

\)1.50

Assembly

3,200,000

Number of assembling direct labor hours

16.00

Finishing

150,000

Number of finished units*

3.00

*Refers to the number of units receiving the finishing activity, not the number of units transferred to Finished Goods Inventory

Martin produced two styles of bookcases in April: the standard bookcase and an unfinished bookcase, which has fewer parts and requires no finishing. The totals for quantities, direct materials costs, and other data follow:

Product

Total Units Produced

Total Direct materials Costs

Total Direct Labor Costs

Total Number of Parts

Total Assembling Direct Labor Hours

Standard bookcase

3,000

\(54,000

\)67,500

9,000

4,500

Unfinished bookcase

3,500

56,000

52,500

7,000

3,500

Requirements

3. Which product costs are reported in the external financial statements? Which costs are used for management decision making? Explain the difference.

Harris Systems specializes in servers for workgroup, e-commerce, and ERP applications. The company’s original job costing system has two direct cost categories: direct materials and direct labor. Overhead is allocated to jobs at the single rate of \(22 per direct labor hour.

A task force headed by Harris’s CFO recently designed an ABC system with four activities. The ABC system retains the current system’s two direct cost categories. Overhead costs are reflected in the four activities. Pertinent data follow:

___________________________________________________________________

Activity Allocation Base Predetermined Overhead

Allocation Rate____

Materials handling Number of parts \) 0.85

Machine setup Number of setups 500.00

Assembling Number of assembling hours 80.00

Shipping Number of shipments 1,500.00_______

Harris Systems has been awarded two new contracts, which will be produced as Job A and Job B. Budget data relating to the contracts follow:

____________________________________________________________

Job A Job B__

Number of parts 15,000 2,000

Number of setups 6 4

Number of assembling hours 1,500 200

Number of shipments 1 1

Total direct labor hours 8,000 600

Number of units produced 100 10

Direct materials cost \( 220,000 \) 30,000

Direct labor cost \( 160,000 \) 12,000__

Requirements

1. Compute the budgeted product cost per unit for each job, using the original costing system (with two direct cost categories and a single overhead allocation rate).

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