Question

In: Accounting

In a service company, a large percentage of overhead costs are company-wide costs. Why does this...

In a service company, a large percentage of overhead costs are company-wide costs. Why does this present a unique challenge for an ABC implementation in a service company, as compared to a manufacturing company?

Solutions

Expert Solution

Service companies are basically concerned with the services they provide to their customers. It is very different from the product manufacturing companies as service providing companies do not physically sell goods rather they provide their services.
Example : accounting firm. An accounting firm prepares and maintenance the accounting data of their customers, so basically they are providing their services not selling goods.

In service companies, the company-wide costs are related to their administrative department as service providing companies do not manufacture any product so their main company-wide costs are related to this department.
Now implementation of ABC in a service company as compared to manufacturing company presents a unique challenge. This is because ABC costing is activity based costing and in-service providing company activities cannot be measured easily.
Also in ABC costing the activities in an organisation are to be identified first and then according to their consumption the costs are allocated.


Related Solutions

Why are overhead cost elements growing as a percentage of total manufacturing costs, while direct labor...
Why are overhead cost elements growing as a percentage of total manufacturing costs, while direct labor and direct material costs are shrinking? Why is cost accounting less constrained than financial accounting is by formal rules imposed from outside the firm? Since costs of joint products are quite arbitrarily arrived at, what possible use do they have in an accounting system?
Assume that the company uses the step method of allocating service department overhead costs to operating...
Assume that the company uses the step method of allocating service department overhead costs to operating departments and Building and Grounds overhead costs are allocated first. The overhead costs of the Personnel Department allocated to Department B are: (2) a. R112 970 b. R107 368 c. R107 590 d. R0 Company has two service departments and two operating departments. Budgeted costs and other data relating to these departments are presented below: Building and Grounds Personnel Operating Departments A B Overhead...
What does it mean to assign overhead costs? There are several options for assigning overhead costs,...
What does it mean to assign overhead costs? There are several options for assigning overhead costs, what are the common allocation bases? What others could be used? Which is the best?
What does it mean to assign overhead costs? There are several options for assigning overhead costs,...
What does it mean to assign overhead costs? There are several options for assigning overhead costs, what are the common allocation bases? What others could be used? Which is the best?
ABC Company uses a job-order costing system and applies overhead costs to jobs using a plant-wide...
ABC Company uses a job-order costing system and applies overhead costs to jobs using a plant-wide rate of 60% of direct materials cost. ABC Company had four jobs in process at June 1 (Jobs #1, #2, #3, and #4). Information related to the four jobs appears below: Job #1 Job #2 beginning work in process ..... $2,500 $1,900 COSTS ADDED DURING JUNE direct materials .............. $ 800 $ 600 direct labor .................. $ 700 $1,780 Job #3 Job #4 beginning...
What are the drawbacks for a company who does not allocate overhead costs to its products?...
What are the drawbacks for a company who does not allocate overhead costs to its products? Why might a company do this and what other controls would they have to implement to insure optimal performance?
Departmental Overhead Rate: Home Run Practice Problem Fairfield Manufacturing currently allocates manufacturing overhead costs by plant-wide...
Departmental Overhead Rate: Home Run Practice Problem Fairfield Manufacturing currently allocates manufacturing overhead costs by plant-wide overhead rate using direct labor costs. D. Shim, a controller argues for departmental overhead rates to allocate manufacturing overhead costs to products. For department overhead rates, manufacturing overhead costs are allocated on the basis of machine hours in the Machining Department and on the basis of direct labor-hours in the Assembly Department. At the beginning of 20X3, the following estimates were provided for the...
The Alphonse Company allocates fixed overhead costs by machine hours and variable overhead costs by direct...
The Alphonse Company allocates fixed overhead costs by machine hours and variable overhead costs by direct labor hours. At the beginning of the year the company expects fixed overhead costs to be $600,000 and variable costs to be $800,000. The expected machine hours are 6,000 and the expected direct labor hours are 80,000. The actual fixed overhead costs are $700,000 and the actual variable overhead costs are $750,000. The actual machine hours during the year are 5,500 and the actual...
1. Why is a predetermined overhead rate useful in "applying" overhead costs in a manufacturing environment?...
1. Why is a predetermined overhead rate useful in "applying" overhead costs in a manufacturing environment? Can you think of any "downside" of using a predetermined overhead to apply/allocate overhead costs to jobs/departments? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-determined_overhead_rate (Links to an external site.)
All of the company's manufacturing overhead costs are fixed—it does not incur any variable manufacturing overhead...
All of the company's manufacturing overhead costs are fixed—it does not incur any variable manufacturing overhead costs. The predetermined overhead rate is based on a cost formula that estimated $2,882,000 of fixed manufacturing overhead for an estimated allocation base of 288,200 direct labor-hours. Wallis does not maintain any beginning or ending work in process inventory.The company’s beginning balance sheet is as follows: Wallis Company Balance Sheet 1/1/XX (dollars in thousands) Assets Cash $ 720 Raw materials inventory 170 Finished goods...
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT