Question

Gallatin Carpet Cleaning is a small, family-owned business operating out of Bozeman, Montana. For its services, the company has always charged a flat fee per hundred square feet of carpet cleaned. The current fee is $23.50 per hundred square feet. However, there is some question about whether the company is actually making any money on jobs for some customers—particularly those located on remote ranches that require considerable travel time. The owner’s daughter, home for the summer from college, has suggested investigating this question using activity-based costing. After some discussion, she designed a simple system consisting of four activity cost pools. The activity cost pools and their activity measures appear below:

Activity Cost Pool	Activity Measure	Activity for the Year
Cleaning carpets	Square feet cleaned (00s)	6,500	hundred square feet
Travel to jobs	Miles driven	263,500	miles
Job support	Number of jobs	2,000	jobs
Other (organization-sustaining costs and idle capacity costs)	None	Not applicable

The total cost of operating the company for the year is $352,000 which includes the following costs:

Wages	$	142,000
Cleaning supplies		24,000
Cleaning equipment depreciation		10,000
Vehicle expenses		33,000
Office expenses		67,000
President’s compensation		76,000
Total cost	$	352,000

Resource consumption is distributed across the activities as follows:

Distribution of Resource Consumption Across Activities
	Cleaning Carpets		Travel to Jobs		Job Support		Other		Total
Wages	72	%	11	%	0	%	17	%	100	%
Cleaning supplies	100	%	0	%	0	%	0	%	100	%
Cleaning equipment depreciation	68	%	0	%	0	%	32	%	100	%
Vehicle expenses	0	%	81	%	0	%	19	%	100	%
Office expenses	0	%	0	%	65	%	35	%	100	%
President’s compensation	0	%	0	%	26	%	74	%	100	%

Job support consists of receiving calls from potential customers at the home office, scheduling jobs, billing, resolving issues, and so on.

Required:

1. Prepare the first-stage allocation of costs to the activity cost pools.

2. Compute the activity rates for the activity cost pools.

3. The company recently completed a 200 square foot carpet-cleaning job at the Flying N ranch—a 53-mile round-trip journey from the company’s offices in Bozeman. Compute the cost of this job using the activity-based costing system.

4. The revenue from the Flying N ranch was $47.00 (200 square feet @ $23.50 per hundred square feet). Calculate the customer margin earned on this job.

Answer 1

Solution 1:

First stage allocation of cost to activity cost pools
Particulars	Total Cost	Cleaning Carpets	Travel to Jobs	Job Support	Others
%	Amount	%	Amount	%	Amount	%	Amount
Wages	$142,000.00	72%	$102,240.00	11%	$15,620.00	0%	$0.00	17%	$24,140.00
Cleaning Supplies	$24,000.00	100%	$24,000.00	0%	$0.00	0%	$0.00	0%	$0.00
Cleaning Equipment depreciation	$10,000.00	68%	$6,800.00	0%	$0.00	0%	$0.00	32%	$3,200.00
Vehicle Expenses	$33,000.00	0%	$0.00	81%	$26,730.00	0%	$0.00	19%	$6,270.00
Office Expense	$67,000.00	0%	$0.00	0%	$0.00	65%	$43,550.00	35%	$23,450.00
President's Compensation	$76,000.00	0%	$0.00	0%	$0.00	26%	$19,760.00	74%	$56,240.00
Total	$352,000.00		$133,040.00		$42,350.00		$63,310.00		$113,300.00

Solution 2:

Determination of activity rate for each activity
Activity	Estimated Overhead Cost	Activity Base	Usage of Activity Base	Activity Rate
Cleaning Carpets	$133,040.00	Square feet cleaned	6500	$20.47
Travel to Jobs	$42,350.00	Miles driven	263500	$0.16
Job Support	$63,310.00	Nos of jobs	2000	$31.66
Other	$113,300.00	No allocation
Total	$352,000.00

Solution 3:

Computation of Job Cost
Particulars	Amount
Cleaning Carpet (2*$20.47)	$40.94
Travel to Jobs (53*$0.16)	$8.48
Job Support	$31.66
Total Cost	$81.08

solution 4:

Customer Margin - Activity based costing
Particulars		Amount
Revenue		$47.00
Costs:
Cleaning Carpet	$40.94
Travel to Jobs	$8.48
Job Support	$31.66
Total Cost		$81.08
Customer Margin		-$34.08