Chapter 22: Q4RQ (page 1228)
What is budgetary slack? Why might managers try to build slack into their budgets?
Short Answer
Budgetary slack means higher expectations for estimated expenses and least expectations for estimated revenues.
Chapter 22: Q4RQ (page 1228)
What is budgetary slack? Why might managers try to build slack into their budgets?
Budgetary slack means higher expectations for estimated expenses and least expectations for estimated revenues.
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Get started for freePreparing a financial budget
This problem continues the Piedmont Computer Company situation from Chapter 21. Assume Piedmont Computer began January with \(15,000 cash. Management forecasts that cash receipts from credit customers will be \)48,000 in January and \(51,000 in February. Projected cash payments include equipment purchases (\)20,000 in January and \(41,000 in February) and selling and administrative expenses (\)2,000 each month).
Piedmont Computer Company’s bank requires a \(26,000 minimum balance in the firm’s checking account. At the end of any month when the account balance falls below \)26,000, the bank automatically extends credit to the firm in multiples of \(5,000. Piedmont Computer Company borrows as little as possible and pays back loans each month in \)1,000 increments, plus 12% interest on the entire unpaid principal. The first payment occurs one month after the loan.
Requirements
1. Prepare Piedmont Computer Company’s cash budget for January and February 2020.
2. How much cash will Piedmont Computer Company borrow in February if cash receipts from customers that month total \(41,000 instead of \)51,000?
11. Kendall Company projects 2019 first quarter sales to be $10,000 and increase by 5% per quarter. Determine the projected sales for 2019 by quarter and in total. Round answers to the nearest dollar.
12. Friedman Company manufactures and sells bicycles. A popular model is the XC. The company expects to sell 1,500 XCs in 2018 and 1,800 XCs in 2019. At the beginning of 2018, Friedman has 350 XCs in Finished Goods Inventory and desires to have 10% of the next year’s sales available at the end of the year. How many XCs will Friedman need to produce in 2018?
Preparing a financial budget—cash budget
You recently began a job as an accounting intern at Reilly Golf Park. Your first task was to help prepare the cash budget for April and May. Unfortunately, the computer with the budget file crashed, and you did not have a backup or even a paper copy. You ran a program to salvage bits of data from the budget file. After entering the following data in the budget, you may have just enough information to reconstruct the budget.
Reilly Golf Park eliminates any cash deficiency by borrowing the exact amount needed from First Street Bank, where the current interest rate is 6% per year. Reilly Golf Park first pays interest on its outstanding debt at the end of each month. The company then repays all borrowed amounts at the end of the month with any excess cash above the minimum required but after paying monthly interest expenses. Reilly does not have any outstanding debt on April 1.
Complete the cash budget. Round interest expense to the nearest whole dollar.
Southeast Suites operates a regional hotel chain. Each hotel is operated by a manager and an assistant manager/controller. Many of the staff who run the front desk, clean the rooms, and prepare the breakfast buffet work part-time or have a second job, so employee turnover is high.
Assistant Manager/Controller Terry Dunn asked the new bookkeeper to help prepare the hotel’s master budget. The master budget is prepared once a year and is submitted to company headquarters for approval. Once approved, the master budget is used to evaluate the hotel’s performance. These performance evaluations affect hotel managers’ bonuses, and they also affect company decisions on which hotels deserve extra funds for capital improvements.
When the budget was almost complete, Dunn asked the bookkeeper to increase the amounts budgeted for labor and supplies by 15%. When asked why, Dunn responded that hotel manager Clay Murry told her to do this when she began working at the hotel. Murry explained that this budgetary cushion gave him flexibility in running the hotel. For example, because company headquarters tightly control capital improvement funds, Murry can use the extra money budgeted for labor and supplies to replace broken televisions or pay “bonuses” to keep valued employees. Dunn initially accepted this explanation because she had observed similar behavior at the hotel where she worked previously.
Requirements Put yourself in Dunn’s position. In deciding how to deal with the situation, answer the following questions:
1. What is the ethical issue?
2. What are the options?
3. What are the possible consequences?
4. What should you do?
In a manufacturing company, what are the three types of budgets included in the master budget? Describe each type.
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