Question

Reciprocal Method of Support Department Cost Allocation

Valron Company has two support departments, Human Resources and General Factory, and two producing departments, Fabricating and Assembly.

	Support Departments		Producing Departments
	Human Resources	General Factory	Fabricating	Assembly
Direct costs	$160,000	$360,000	$114,800	$95,000
Normal activity:
Number of employees	—	60	80	170
Square footage	1,000	—	5,700	13,300

The costs of the Human Resources Department are allocated on the basis of number of employees, and the costs of General Factory are allocated on the basis of square footage.

Now assume that Valron Company uses the reciprocal method to allocate support department costs.

Required:

1. Calculate the allocation ratios (rounded to four significant digits) for the four departments using the reciprocal method. If an amount is zero, enter "0". Use the rounded values for subsequent calculations.

	Proportion of Driver Used by
	Human Resources	General Factory	Fabricating	Assembly
Human Resources
General Factory

2. Develop a simultaneous equations system of total costs for the support departments. If required, round your answers to four decimal places. Use these numbers for subsequent calculations. If required, round all other intermediate calculations to six decimal places, except the answers computed in requirement 1.

Human Resources (HR)	=	$	+	(GF)
General Factory (GF)	=	$	+	(HR)

Solve for the total reciprocated costs of each support department. (Round reciprocated total costs to the nearest dollar.)

Human Resources (HR)	$
General Factory (GF)	$

3. Using the reciprocal method, allocate the costs of the Human Resources and General Factory departments to the Fabricating and Assembly departments. Round all allocated costs to the nearest dollar. If an amount is zero, enter "0". Note: There may be a "$1" difference due to intermediate rounding.

	Support Departments			Producing Departments
	Human Resources	General Factory		Fabricating	Assembly
Direct costs	$	$		$	$
Allocate:
Human Resources
General Factory
Total after allocation	$	$		$	$

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Answer 1

Solution 1:

Computation of allocation ratios
Department	Proportion of driver used by
	Human Resource	General factory	Fabricating	Assembly
Human Resources		0.1935	0.2581	0.5484
General Factory	0.0500		0.2850	0.6650

Solution 2:

Service department cost = Direct Cost + Allocated Cost

HR Department Cost = $160,000 + 0.05 * GF cost

GF department cost = $360,000 + 0.1935 * HR Cost

GF department cost = $360,000 + 0.1935 * ($160,000 + 0.05 * GF cost)

GF Department cost = $360,000 + $30,960 + 0.009675 * GF Cost

GF cost = $394,788

HR cost = $160,000 + 0.05 * GF cost = $160,000 + 0.05 * $394,788 = $179,739

Solution 3:

From	Service Department Cost Allocation - Reciprocal Method
	Service Department		Operating Departments
	HR	General Factory	Fabricating	Assembly
Direct charges of department	$160,000	$360,000	$114,800	$95,000
HR	-$179,739	$34,788	$46,384	$98,567
Operations (1:1:5:3)	$19,739	-$394,788	$112,515	$262,534
Total	$0	$0	$273,699	$456,101