Question

Financial Versus Activity Flexible Budgeting

Kelly Gray, production manager, was upset with the latest performance report, which indicated that she was $100,000 over budget. Given the efforts that she and her workers had made, she was confident that they had met or beat the budget. Now, she was not only upset but also genuinely puzzled over the results. Three items—direct labor, power, and setups—were over budget. The actual costs for these three items follow:

	Actual Costs
Direct labor	$249,620
Power	124,830
Setups	136,530
Total	$510,980

Kelly knew that her operation had produced more units than originally had been budgeted, so more power and labor had naturally been used. She also knew that the uncertainty in scheduling had led to more setups than planned. When she pointed this out to John Huang, the controller, he assured her that the budgeted costs had been adjusted for the increase in productive activity. Curious, Kelly questioned John about the methods used to make the adjustment.

JOHN: If the actual level of activity differs from the original planned level, we adjust the budget by using budget formulas—formulas that allow us to predict what the costs will be for different levels of activity.

KELLY: The approach sounds reasonable. However, I'm sure something is wrong here. Tell me exactly how you adjusted the costs of labor, power, and setups.

JOHN: First, we obtain formulas for the individual items in the budget by using the method of least squares. We assume that cost variations can be explained by variations in productive activity where activity is measured by direct labor hours. Here is a list of the cost formulas for the three items you mentioned. The variable X is the number of direct labor hours:

Labor cost	=	$12X
Power cost	=	$4,970 + $3.9X
Setup cost	=	$101,600

KELLY: I think I see the problem. Power costs don't have a lot to do with direct labor hours. They have more to do with machine hours. As production increases, machine hours increase more rapidly than direct labor hours. Also, …

JOHN: You know, you have a point. The coefficient of determination for power cost is only about 50 percent. That leaves a lot of unexplained cost variation. The coefficient for labor, however, is much better—it explains about 96 percent of the cost variation. Setup costs, of course, are fixed.

KELLY: Well, as I was about to say, setup costs also have very little to do with direct labor hours. And I might add that they certainly are not fixed—at least not all of them. We had to do more setups than our original plan called for because of the scheduling changes. And we have to pay our people when they work extra hours. It seems as if we are always paying overtime. I wonder if we simply do not have enough people for the setup activity. Supplies are used for each setup, and these are not cheap. Did you build these extra costs of increased setup activity into your budget?

JOHN: No, we assumed that setup costs were fixed. I see now that some of them could vary as the number of setups increases. Kelly, let me see if I can develop some cost formulas based on better explanatory variables. I'll get back with you in a few days.

Assume that after a few days' work, John developed the following cost formulas, all with a coefficient of determination greater than 90 percent:

Labor cost	=	$12X; where X = Direct labor hours
Power cost	=	$67,000 + 0.80Y; where Y = Machine hours
Setup cost	=	$97,780 + $400Z; where Z = Number of setups

The actual measures of each of the activity drivers are as follows:

Direct labor hours	20,100
Machine hours	90,000
Number of setups	103

Required:

1. Prepare a performance report for direct labor, power, and setups using the direct-labor-based formulas.

Performance Report
	Actual Costs	Budgeted Costs	Budget Variance	Favorable (F) or Unfavorable (U)
	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_2	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_3	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_4
	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_7	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_8	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_9
	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_12	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_13	fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_14
Total	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_16	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_17	$fill in the blank 18a629039075fa3_18

2. Prepare a performance report for direct labor, power, and setups using the multiple cost driver formulas that John developed.

Performance Report
	Actual Costs	Budgeted Costs	Budget Variance	Favorable (F) or Unfavorable (U)
	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_2	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_3	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_4
	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_7	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_8	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_9
	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_12	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_13	fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_14
Total	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_16	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_17	$fill in the blank dcda7dfba03d056_18

3. Of the two approaches, which provides the most accurate picture of Kelly's performance?

4. After reviewing the approach to performance measurement, a consultant remarked that non-value-added cost trend reports would be a much better performance measurement approach than comparing actual costs with budgeted costs—even if activity flexible budgets were used. Do you agree or disagree?

Answer 1

Req.1 Using Direct Labor Based Formula

Performance Report
	Actual Costs	Budgeted Costs	Budget Variance	Favorable (F) or Unfavorable (U)
Direct labor	$249,620	$241,200	$$8420	Unfavorable
Power	124,830	83,360	$41,470	Unfavorable
Setups	136,530	101,600	$34.930	Unfavorable
Total	$510,980	$426,160	$84,820	Unfavorable

Working:

1) Labor Cost: 12x = 12*( 20,100)= $241,200

2) Power Cost : $ 4970 +$3.9( x) =$4970 +3.9(20,100)= $83,360

3) Setup Cost :$101,600

Req.2 : Using Multiple Cost driver:

Performance Report
	Actual Costs	Budgeted Costs	Budget Variance	Favorable (F) or Unfavorable (U)
Direct labor	$249,620	$241,200	$8420	Unfavorable
Power	124,830	$139,000	14,170	Favorable
Setups	136,530	$138,980	$2450	Favorable
Total	$510,980	$519,180	$8200	Favorable

Working:

1) Labor: 12X = 12 * 20,100'= $241,200

2) Power:$67,000+0.80(y)= $67,000 + 0.80( 90,000)=$139,000

3) Setup Cost : $ 97,780 + 400(z) = $97,780 + 400 (103)= $138,980

Req.3

Performance report based on multiple cost driver provides the accurate result.

Req.4

Disagreeg