Question

Preble Company manufactures one product. Its variable manufacturing overhead is applied to production based on direct labor-hours and its standard cost card per unit is as follows:

Direct material: 6 pounds at $8.00 per pound	$	48.00
Direct labor: 4 hours at $13 per hour		52.00
Variable overhead: 4 hours at $5 per hour		20.00
Total standard variable cost per unit	$	120.00

The company also established the following cost formulas for its selling expenses:

	Fixed Cost per Month				Variable Cost per Unit Sold
Advertising	$	380,000
Sales salaries and commissions	$	460,000			$	30.00
Shipping expenses					$	21.00

The planning budget for March was based on producing and selling 20,000 units. However, during March the company actually produced and sold 25,500 units and incurred the following costs:

1. Purchased 170,000 pounds of raw materials at a cost of $7.20 per pound. All of this material was used in production.

2. Direct-laborers worked 73,000 hours at a rate of $14.00 per hour.

3. Total variable manufacturing overhead for the month was $427,050.

4. Total advertising, sales salaries and commissions, and shipping expenses were $386,000, $545,000, and $295,000, respectively.

11. What is the variable overhead rate variance for March? (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance.). Input the amount as a positive value.)

12. What amounts of advertising, sales salaries and commissions, and shipping expenses would be included in the company’s flexible budget for March?

13. What is the spending variance related to advertising? (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance.). Input the amount as a positive value.)

14. What is the spending variance related to sales salaries and commissions? (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance.). Input the amount as a positive value.)

15. What is the spending variance related to shipping expenses? (Indicate the effect of each variance by selecting "F" for favorable, "U" for unfavorable, and "None" for no effect (i.e., zero variance.). Input the amount as a positive value.)

Answer 1

11. Variable Overhead Rate Variance = (Std Rate- Actual Rate)* Std Hours

ie., (5-(427050/73,000))*(25500*4) => 86700 (U)

12. Flexible Budget would include following:

	$
Advertrisement	380,000
Sales Salaries	460,000
Sales Commission ($30*25,500)	765,000
Shipping expense ($21*25,500)	535,500

13. Advertising being a fixed Cost, So spending Variance => Budgetted expenditure - Actual Expenditure ie., (380,000-386000) = 6000(U)

14. Sales Salaries and commission, So spending Variance => Budgetted expenditure - Actual Expenditure ie.,

[ (30*25,500)+460,000] - 545,000 = 680,000 (F)

15. Shipping Expenses being a variable Cost, So spending Variance => (Std rate*Actual Output)- actual expense ie., (25500*21)-295,000 = 240,500(F)

Please comment in case of any query regarding this solution.