Question

You have just been hired by FAB Corporation, the manufacturer of a revolutionary new garage door opening device. The president has asked that you review the company’s costing system and “do what you can to help us get better control of our manufacturing overhead costs.” You find that the company has never used a flexible budget, and you suggest that preparing such a budget would be an excellent first step in overhead planning and control.

After much effort and analysis, you determined the following cost formulas and gathered the following actual cost data for March:

	Cost Formula	Actual Cost in March
Utilities	$16,200 + $0.16 per machine-hour	$	21,840
Maintenance	$38,000 + $1.50 per machine-hour	$	67,800
Supplies	$0.80 per machine-hour	$	19,000
Indirect labor	$94,200 + $2.00 per machine-hour	$	143,100
Depreciation	$68,300	$	70,000

During March, the company worked 22,000 machine-hours and produced 16,000 units. The company had originally planned to work 24,000 machine-hours during March.

Required:

1. Calculate the activity variances for March.

2. Calculate the spending variances for March.

Answer 1

	Actual results	Spending variance	Flexible budget	Activity variance	Planning budget
Utilities	$21,840	$2,120 U	$19,720 ($16,200+$0.16*22,000)	$320 F	$20,040 ($16,200+$0.16*24,000)
Maintenance	67,800	3,200 F	71,000 (38,000+1.50*22,000)	3,000 F	74,000 (38,000+1.50*24,000)
Supplies	19,000	1,400 U	17,600 (0.80*22,000)	1,600 F	19,200 (0.80*24,000)
Indirect labor	143,100	4,900 U	138,200 (94,200+2*22,000)	4,000 F	142,200 (94,200+2*24,000)
Depreciation	$70,000	$1,700 U	$68,300	$0	$68,300