Question

Hector Gonzales runs the floral art company, which supplies floral arrangements to three large supermarket chains throughout Australia. Management has become concerned about the rising costs associated with the process and dispatch of orders. An activity analysis of the indirect costs identified the following customer related cost.

                                                                                                       Use of cost drivers

                                                                                                                Supermarket customers

Activity cost pool	Cost driver	Estimated indirect costs	Total expected use of cost driver**	1	2	3
Orders processing	Number of orders	$200 000	450	300	100	50
Returns processing	Number of returns	$50 000	100	50	25	25
Delivery	Number deliveries	$100 000	700	400	200	100
Rush orders	Number of rush orders	$70 000	50	10	20	20
Sales visits	Number of visits	$20 000	100	50	25	25

1. Assign the activity costs to ach of the three customers
2. Calculate the contribution for each customer if the sales pattern for each as follows:

Supermarket customer            Sales revenue**

1. $350,000
2. S160,000
3. $210,000

**Selling price is marked up 50% on direct cost of flowers

Hints: conduct a customer profitability analysis based on the above customer related indirect costs.

3. What conclusion can we draw from the customer profit analysis? Advise the management of the Floral Art Company as to whether any changes should be made in its relationships with customers. Advise Hector as to how he should go about executing these changes.

Answer 1

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Hector Gonzales
Calculation of ABC rates		A	B	C=A/B
Activity cost pool	Cost Driver	Cost	Activity usages	ABC rates
Orders Processing	Number of orders	200,000.00	450.00	444.44
Returns Processing	Number of returns	50,000.00	100.00	500.00
Delivery	Number of deliveries	100,000.00	700.00	142.86
Rush Orders	Number of rush orders	70,000.00	50.00	1,400.00
Sales Visits	Number of visits	20,000.00	100.00	200.00
Total Cost
Cost Allocation		See C	D	E=C*D
Customer 1	Cost Driver	Activity rates	Activity used	Cost assigned
Orders Processing	Number of orders	444.44	300.00	133,333.33
Returns Processing	Number of returns	500.00	50.00	25,000.00
Delivery	Number of deliveries	142.86	400.00	57,142.86
Rush Orders	Number of rush orders	1,400.00	10.00	14,000.00
Sales Visits	Number of visits	200.00	50.00	10,000.00
		See C	F	G=F*C
Customer 2	Cost Driver	Activity rates	Activity used	Cost assigned
Orders Processing	Number of orders	444.44	100.00	44,444.44
Returns Processing	Number of returns	500.00	25.00	12,500.00
Delivery	Number of deliveries	142.86	200.00	28,571.43
Rush Orders	Number of rush orders	1,400.00	20.00	28,000.00
Sales Visits	Number of visits	200.00	25.00	5,000.00
		See C	H	I=H*C
Customer 3	Cost Driver	Activity rates	Activity used	Cost assigned
Orders Processing	Number of orders	444.44	50.00	22,222.22
Returns Processing	Number of returns	500.00	25.00	12,500.00
Delivery	Number of deliveries	142.86	100.00	14,285.71
Rush Orders	Number of rush orders	1,400.00	20.00	28,000.00
Sales Visits	Number of visits	200.00	25.00	5,000.00
Customer profitability analysis	Customer 1	Customer 2	Customer 3	Note
Sales	350,000.00	160,000.00	210,000.00	J
Less: Direct costs	233,333.33	106,666.67	140,000.00	K=J/150%
Gross margin	116,666.67	53,333.33	70,000.00
Less: Customer costs
Orders Processing	133,333.33	44,444.44	22,222.22
Returns Processing	25,000.00	12,500.00	12,500.00
Delivery	57,142.86	28,571.43	14,285.71
Rush Orders	14,000.00	28,000.00	28,000.00
Sales Visits	10,000.00	5,000.00	5,000.00
Customer margin	(122,809.52)	(65,182.54)	(12,007.94)

Conclusion

There is a loss in selling to each of the customer.

Advise

The gross margin from every customer is positive. So Hector should try to reduce indirect costs.