1. Accumulating and Assigning Costs to Products
Chapter 4 1

2. Cost Flows in Organizations
In order to compute product costs, management accounting systems should reflect the actual cost flows in an organization
Manufacturing, retail, and service organizations have different patterns of cost flows resulting in different management accounting priorities
Exhibits 4-1 to 4-3 2

3. Review of Important Cost Terms
Cost Object
Consumable resources vs Capacity-related resources
Direct vs Indirect costs 3

4. Handling Indirect Costs in a Manufacturing Environment
Direct costs: assign costs to the cost object directly;
Indirect costs: allocate a portion of the cost to the cost object

5. Indirect Manufacturing Costs (Overhead) Allocation
Allocation steps:
Choose an allocation base:
e.g. direct labor hours, direct labor cost, or machine hours
Calculate allocation rate:
Total Indirect Cost /Total Allocation base
Applied indirect costs = allocation rate * actual quantity of base used 5

6. Practice exercise
Lollah Mfg Company expects annual mfg. overhead to be $800,000, 50,000 direct labor hours costing $1,600,000 and machine run time of 25,000 hours. Calculate overhead allocation rates based on direct labor hours, direct labor cost, and machine time. Product A: DL 10,000 hrs; DL cost $300,000; MH: 7,000 hrs
OH allocation (Direct labor hours):
OH allocation (Direct labor cost):
OH allocation (MH): 6

7. Indirect Manufacturing Costs (Overhead) Allocation
A lot of firms use a single overhead rate
Which allocation base is better?
Labor intensive? Highly mechanized?
Activity Based Costing (ABC) assigns overhead costs to products using a number of allocation bases (discussed in ch5; save pg for ch5). 7

8. Indirect Manufacturing Costs (Overhead) Allocation
Predetermined Indirect Cost (OH) Rate
Utilize estimates rather than actual costs and quantities
Why not use actual amounts?
Because total actual overhead cost and total actual level of the allocation base are not known until the end of the accounting period, making it impossible to determine the actual overhead rate until that time.
Allows decisions to be made based on budgeted amounts. Thus, we can have an immediate cost figure to determine the price to charge for a job (customer). 8

9. Overapplied Overhead
If applied OH is greater than actual, OH is overapplied
Overapplied OH eliminated at end of period as follows:
-If small amount, Dr. Mfg. OH and Cr. COGS
-If relatively large amount, apportion and close to Work in Process, Finished Goods and COGS 9

10. Underapplied Overhead
If actual OH is greater than applied, OH is underapplied
Underapplied OH eliminated at end of period as follows:
-If small amount, Dr. COGS and Cr. Mfg. OH
-If relatively large amount, apportion and close to Work in Process, Finished Goods and COGS 10

11. Review
Actual overhead was $1,500,000. The predetermined overhead rate was $17 per direct labor hour, and there were 100,000 direct labor hours. Overhead was:
Underapplied by $200,000
Overapplied by $200,000
Underapplied by $20,000
Overapplied by $20,000 11

12. Job-Order versus Process Costing
Job Order Costing
Product: custom
e.g. construction
Document: job cost sheet
WIP-job
Job costs =DM+DL+OH allocated
Process Costing
Product: identical
e.g. producers of paints and plastics
Document: production cost report
WIP-department
Cost accumulated by each operation.
Unit cost =total costs of production/ total number of units produced 12

13. Job-Order and Process Costing Examples13

14. Relating Product Costs to Jobs14

15. Practice Excercises
Handout Q1: Job order vs Process costing
E4-27

16. Process Costing: Cost Flows through Departments & Accounts16

17. Process Costing: Costs and Units
Process costing is essentially a system of averaging.
Manufacturing costs are divided by equivalent units to calculate an average unit cost.
A company that uses process costing system needs to keep records for both product costs and units.
Costs: Beg WIP + Cost Incurred during the period=Cost Transferred out +End WIP
Units: Units in Beg WIP+ Units started=Units Completed + Units in End WIP
Handout Q2

18. Calculating Unit Cost Cost Per Equivalent Unit
The average unit cost is referred to as cost per equivalent unit 18

19. Calculating Unit Cost Equivalent Units
Partially completed units are converted to a comparable number of completed units, called equivalent units
e.g. 100 units that are 50% complete are equivalent to 50 complete units (100 x 50%)
Equivalent units may be different for material and conversion costs (labor and OH) if they enter production at different times.
Easy to identify when materials are added
Materials are often added at the beginning of the process. Sometimes they are added evenly or at the end of the process.
Harder to identify when labor and overhead are added
Often grouped together as conversion costs
Assumed to be added evenly 19

20. Process Costing: Kent Chemicals Example
Mixing Department
Beginning Work in Process: 10,000 gallon
(% complete: 100% materials, 80% conversion costs)
-Direct material costs = $18,000
-Direct labor =$7,800
-Overhead = $23,400
70,000 gallons started
-Direct material costs = $142,000
-Direct labor cost = $62,200
Overhead cost = $186,600
60,000 gallons completed. Ending WIP 100% completed for materials and 50% completed for conversion costs.
Required: Finish the product cost report for the mixing department of Kent (Handout Q3) 20

21. Dealing with Transferred-In Cost
Process Costing Systems generally use multiple processes
Items completed in one processing department, costs are transferred to the next department
Transferred-in costs are treated as direct materials in the next processing departing.
When units are completed in the final process, the costs are transferred to finished goods. 21

22. Drop a Product Line
Analysis involves calculating the change in income that will result from dropping the product line:
If income increases, the product line should be dropped
If income decreases, the product line should not be dropped
Note: Allocated costs are not relevant 22

23. Dropping a Product Line – Mercer Hardware Example
Profit calculation with three product lines 23

24. Dropping a Product Line – Mercer Hardware Example
Profit calculation with two product lines 24

25. Dropping a Product Line – Mercer Hardware Example25

26. Beware of the Cost Allocation Death Spiral
When dropping a product line
- Common fixed costs are not incremental
Common fixed cost allocation is spread among remaining product lines
Management must understand and remember this impact when making decisions 26

27. Practice
Group Case 4-51