Waltham Motors Division Case

The main reason behind it is that the variance analysis of materials, labor, and overhead indicates the difference between original budget and actual sales/amount. It explains that the management should make changes in the budgets in order to diminish the chances of failure (Epstein & Jermakowicz, 2010). Moreover, the company should make changes in its all budgets like production budget, sales budget, manufacturing budget, selling budget and general & administrative. These changes would be helpful to reduce the difference between the actual and projected sales of the firm.

Use of the flexible budget shows the budgeted operating income given the actual sales. When you compare the flexible budget to the actual budget you are able to compare the total sales and cost incurred given the same units sold. The sales price variance, which is the actual sales less the flexible budgeted sales, was $14,700 favorable. This means that actual sales were higher than budgeted sales at that usage. This is attributable to the increase in service price from $25 to $26.40. Price variance for material usage was $2,100 over the flexible budget projection. This could be attributed to overuse or waste of materials. As expected, the direct labor price variance was $3,375 lower than the flexible budget amount. This is attributed to the manager’s effective use of labor. Operating expenses were also higher than the flexible budget

2.) What is the ‘relevant range’ for the cost structure? In other words, at what volume might you expect the fixed and variable costs to change appreciably?

Q2. Using budget data, what was the total expected cost per unit if all manufacturing and shipping overhead (both variable and fixed) was allocated to planned production? What was the actual per unit cost of production and shipping?

This was favorable, but the Efficiency Variable was 100,000 unfavorable. This suggest that Competition Bike received a great price, but with the unfavorable Efficiency there were a lot of left over materials suggesting the material might not be the best quality. Direct Labor had a 150,000 Unfavorable Variance, but had a 50,000 favorable Efficiency Variance. The labor cost was up due to the high skill level needed for the bike manufacturing. The 50,000 favorable Efficiency Variance enabled the high skill labor to perform the task very efficiently. The Manufacturing Overhead had a 24,000 unfavorable Price Variance, and a 2426 unfavorable Efficiency Variance. The Advertising Cost had a 5,000 unfavorable Price Variance and a 1246 favorable Efficiency Variance. This suggest that Competition Bike spent more on Advertising in order to boost lagging sales, and the favorable Efficiency Variance shows that even though more was spent than budgeted, the money spent was efficient and worth the increase. The Transportation Out had a 3207 unfavorable Price Variance and a 2400 unfavorable Efficiency Variance. This suggest that Transportation cost were up due to increased fuel cost, and this increase in cost resulted in unfavorable Efficiency Variance due to transporting fewer bikes with increase in fuel cost.

3. Post the file from the same page where you accessed this Assignment, using the

Determine the actual costs incurred during the month of May for direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead.

Wilkerson employs a Normal Cost System, which means that they use predetermined overhead rates along with actual costs for direct material and direct labor. Normal costing systems are appropriate when overhead costs are a relatively small percentage of total manufacturing costs and product diversity is limited. For Wilkerson, normal costing does not make sense. Overhead costs make up over 50 percent of total manufacturing costs and their product offering is relatively more diverse. This indicates that the current accounting system in place may be distorting costs significantly. Supporting data:

5. Automation reduces per unit labor costs but it has two disadvantages. What are these?

5. In addition to the unit manufacturing cost, the work force variation costs of a pure chase strategy would be:

Overhead costs include rent, office staff, depreciation, and other. Once the flexible budget was complete, variances between the actual and flexible budget could be calculated (Exhibit B). The variance for frame assembly was favorable with actual costs being $82,663 less than in the flexible budget. The variances for wheel and final assembly however were both unfavorable. Wheel assembly had an unfavorable variance of $50,650, while final assembly variance was the highest at an unfavorable variance of $231,200. Taking into account these three aspects of direct cost, direct cost has an unfavorable variance $199,187. Although most overhead costs are fixed, 2/3 of other costs are variable and increase with the increased production. As shown in Exhibit B, overhead variance is unfavorable at $60,000. The direct cost variance and overhead variable together lead to a total unfavorable variance of $259,187.

• This cost method does not provide the best system for JDCW’s cost allocation. By using only three overhead rates the present system grossly undermines the true production costs since other activities of the production process are not acknowledged.

Companies will have set guidelines to trigger the need for a variance report such as variances over a specific percentage or dollar amount. (Cleverly, Song, & Cleverly, 2011, Pg. 381) In an analysis of revenues, a negative variation is unfavorable; in an analysis of costs, a negative variation is favorable. (Dove & Forthman, 1995) Variation is calculated by subtracting the expected or budgeted figure from the actual figure for each variable. The variable figure is then divided by the expected figure in order to establish a percentage of the variance. Wages that are over the budgeted amount would be an unfavorable variance and would be an indication that there is a need for a variance report. (Dove & Forthman, 1995) Supply costs being less than the budgeted amount would be a favorable variance, however it could result in the supplies budget being reduced if there is not a reasonable explanation as to the cause for the variance. Therefore, a variable department manager would ask for a variance report detailing the reason for the variance to be completed, otherwise it appears as if the budget is overstated and needs to be reduced.

8. I would like to remove allocated costs and fixed overheads and see what would be the variable cost. If this is done, you can see that the variable cost hovers around 7 FF. ( Not many of you have done this)

The cost of raw materials impacted the actual profit through the price variance and the quantity variance of the direct materials. Using the level 3 analysis, it was determined that the price variance was favorable €46 and the quantity variance was unfavorable €17 which represented a flexible budget variance of favorable €29. This impacts the profit because the Italian region was very efficient with their costs of direct materials, but the Italian region came up short in their manufacturing efficiencies as they experienced an