Question

ou have just been hired by FAB Corporation, the manufacturer of a revolutionary new garage door opening device. The president has asked that you review the company’s costing system and “do what you can to help us get better control of our manufacturing overhead costs.” You find that the company has never used a flexible budget, and you suggest that preparing such a budget would be an excellent first step in overhead planning and control.

After much effort and analysis, you determined the following cost formulas and gathered the following actual cost data for March:

	Cost Formula	Actual Cost in March
Utilities	$16,000 + $0.12 per machine-hour	$	20,200
Maintenance	$38,300 + $2.10 per machine-hour	$	74,100
Supplies	$0.60 per machine-hour	$	11,800
Indirect labor	$94,800 + $1.30 per machine-hour	$	121,700
Depreciation	$67,900	$	69,600

During March, the company worked 18,000 machine-hours and produced 12,000 units. The company had originally planned to work 20,000 machine-hours during March.

Required:

1. Calculate the activity variances for March.

2. Calculate the spending variances for March.

Answer 1

1.

	Planning Budget	Flexible Budget	Activity Variance
Machine Hours	20000	18000
Utilities	$      18,400	$       18,160	$         240	U
Maintenance	$      80,300	$       76,100	$      4,200	U
Supplies	$      12,000	$       10,800	$      1,200	U
Indirect Labor	$    120,800	$     118,200	$      2,600	U
Depreciation	$      67,900	$       67,900	$            -	None
Total Expenses	$    299,400	$     291,160	$      8,240	U

2.

	Actual Results	Flexible Budget	Spending Variance
Machine Hours	18000	18000
Utilities	$      20,200	$       18,160	$      2,040	U
Maintenance	$      74,100	$       76,100	$      2,000	F
Supplies	$      11,800	$       10,800	$      1,000	U
Indirect Labor	$    121,700	$     118,200	$      3,500	U
Depreciation	$      69,600	$       67,900	$      1,700	U
Total Expenses	$    297,400	$     291,160	$      6,240	U