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Chapter 25: Q6RQ (page 1406)
What is differential analysis?
Differential analysis refers to an approach used by business entities to makeshort-term decisions.
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What are sunk costs? Give an example.
Cold Sports manufactures snowboards. Its cost of making 2,000 bindings is as follows:
Direct materials \(17,510
Direct labor 2,600
Variable overhead 2,060
Fixed overhead 7,000
Total manufacturing costs for 2,000 bindings \)29,170
Suppose Topnotch will sell bindings to Cold Sports for \(15 each. Cold Sports would pay \)3 per unit to transport the bindings to its manufacturing plant, where it would add its own logo at a cost of \(0.50 per binding.
Requirements
1. Cold Sports’s accountants predict that purchasing the bindings from Topnotch will enable the company to avoid \)2,300 of fixed overhead. Prepare an analysis to show whether Cold Sports should make or buy the bindings.
2. The facilities freed by purchasing bindings from Topnotch can be used to manufacture another product that will contribute $3,100 to profit. Total fixed costs will be the same as if Cold Sports had produced the bindings. Show which alternative makes the best use of Cold Sports’s facilities: (a) make bindings, (b) buy bindings and leave facilities idle, or (c) buy bindings and make another product.
What questions should managers answer when facing constraints?
Mary Tan is the controller for Duck Associates, a property management company in Portland, Oregon. Each year, Tan and payroll clerk Toby Stock meet with the external auditors about payroll accounting. This year, the auditors suggest that Tan consider outsourcing Duck Associates’s payroll accounting to a company specializing in payroll processing services. This would allow Tan and her staff to focus on their primary responsibility: accounting for the properties under management. At present, payroll requires 1.5 employee positions—payroll clerk Toby Stock and a bookkeeper who spends half her time entering payroll data in the system.
Tan considers this suggestion, and she lists the following items relating to outsourcing payroll accounting:
The current payroll software that was purchased for \(4,000 three years ago would not be needed if payroll processing were outsourced.
Duck Associates’ bookkeeper would spend half her time preparing the weekly payroll input form that is given to the payroll processing service. She is paid \)450 per week.
Duck Associates would no longer need payroll clerk Toby Stock, whose annual salary is \(42,000.
The payroll processing service would charge \)2,000 per month.
Requirements
1. Would outsourcing the payroll function increase or decrease Duck Associates’ operating income?
2. Tan believes that outsourcing payroll would simplify her job, but she does not like the prospect of having to lay off Stock, who has become a close personal friend. She does not believe there is another position available for Stock at his current salary. Can you think of other factors that might support keeping Stock, rather than outsourcing payroll processing? How should each of the factors affect Tan’s decision if she wants to do what is best for Duck Associates and act ethically?
Refer to details about Skiable Acres from Short Exercise S25-2. Assume that Skiable Acres’s reputation has diminished and other resorts in the vicinity are charging only \(85 per lift ticket. Skiable Acres has become a price-taker and will not be able to charge more than its competitors. At the market price, Skiable Acres managers believe they will still serve 725,000 skiers and snowboarders each season.
Requirements
1. If Skiable Acres cannot reduce its costs, what profit will it earn? State your answer in dollars and as a percent of assets. Will investors be happy with the profit level?
2. Assume Skiable Acres has found ways to cut its fixed costs to \)30,000,000. What is its new target variable cost per skier/snowboarder?
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