Question

Saratoga Company manufactures jobs to customer specifications. The company is conducting a time-driven activity-based costing study in its Purchasing Department to better understand how Purchasing Department labor costs are consumed by individual jobs. To aid the study, the company provided the following data regarding its Purchasing Department and three of its many jobs:

PLEASE ONLY ANSWER #4 & #5

Number of employees		8
Average salary per employee	$	28,500
Weeks of employment per year		52
Hours worked per week		40
Practical capacity percentage		85	%
	Requisition Processing			Bid Evaluation	Inspection
Minutes per unit of the activity	15			45	30
	Job X			Job Y	Job Z
Number of requisitions processed	9			6	5
Number of bid evaluations	5			4	6
Number of inspections	8			4	8

Now assume that Saratoga Company would like to answer the following “what if” question using its time-driven activity-based costing system: Assuming our estimated activity demands for all jobs in the next period will be as shown below, how will this affect our job costs and our staffing levels within the Purchasing Department?

	Requisition Processing	Bid Evaluation	Inspection
Activity demands for all jobs	5,500	8,200	9,700

Required:

1. Will the revised activity demands affect the total Purchasing Department labor costs assigned to Job X, Job Y, and Job Z? DO NOT ANSWER

2. Using the revised activity demands, calculate Saratoga’s used capacity in minutes. DO NOT ANSWER

3. Using the revised activity demands, calculate Saratoga’s unused capacity in minutes. DO NOT ANSWER

4. Using the revised activity demands, calculate Saratoga’s unused capacity in number of employees. (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

5. Based on the revised activity demands, calculate the impact on expenses of matching capacity with demand. (Be sure to round down your potential adjustment in the number of employees to a whole number. Negative amount should be indicated by a minus sign.)

Answer 1

Solution:

Answer for (4).

you have unused capacity in minutes = 1,06,140

Used capacity in minutes = 7,42,500

Total practical capacity = 8,48,640

Answer for (4).

Unused capacity in no of employees = 1,06,140 / (52 * 40 * 60 * 85%) = 1,06,140 / 1,06,080	1.00

Answer for (5):

For a practical capacity of 8,48,640 minutes, salary expense will be =28,500 * 8	2,28,000
Impact on expense will be 2,28,000 / 8,48,640 * 7,42,500 = 1,99,483.88