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When should a company use absorption costing when setting sales prices? When should it use variable costing?

Short Answer

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Answer

Absorption costing should be used for long-term planning while variable costing is used for short-term planning.

Step by step solution

01

Use of absorption costing

Absorption costing should be used when the sales price is calculated for long-term planning because it is important to include fixed manufacturing overhead.

02

Use of variable costing

Variable costing should be used for short-term projects because in short-term projects fixed costs are sunk costs and irrelevant in decision making.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Question: Preparing absorption costing income statements, production less than sales

Refer to Exercise E21-19.

Requirements

  1. Prepare the May income statement using absorption costing.
  2. Is operating income using absorption costing higher or lower than variable costing income? Explain why.
  3. Determine the balance in Finished Goods Inventory as of May 31.

Question: The Hurley Hat Company manufactures baseball hats. Hurleyโ€™s primary customers are sporting goods stores that supply uniforms to youth baseball teams. Following is Hurleyโ€™s income statement for 2018:

In 2018, Hurley produced and sold 200,000 baseball hats. Of the Cost of Goods Sold, \(150,000 is fixed; 80% of the Selling and Administrative Expenses are fixed. There were no beginning inventories on January 1, 2018. The company is considering two options to increase sales.

Option 1: The company is operating at 100,000 hats below full production capacity and is considering increasing advertising to increase sales to the production capacity level in 2019. The marketing director predicts that an additional \)100,000 expenditure for advertising would increase sales to 300,000 hats per year.

Option 2: The sales manager has been negotiating with buyers for several national sporting goods retailers and recommends the company expand production capacity to 400,000 hats in order to secure long-term contracts beginning in 2019. The expansion is expected to increase fixed manufacturing costs by \(200,000 per year. Additionally, the retailers are requesting a higher-quality hat, and the changes to the hat materials and manufacturing process would increase variable manufacturing costs by \)1 per hat for the additional 200,000 hats. (The original 200,000 hats manufactured and sold would not be affected by this change.)

Requirements

1. Use the data from the 2018 income statement to prepare an income statement using variable costing. Assume no beginning or ending inventories. Calculate the contribution margin ratio. Round to two decimal places.

2. Prepare an absorption costing income statement assuming the company pursues Option 1 and increases advertising and production and sales increase to 300,000 hats.

3. Refer to the original data. Prepare an absorption costing income statement assuming the company pursues Option 2 and increases capacity and sales and production increases to 400,000 total hats.

4. Which option should the company pursue? Explain your reasoning.

Question:What is a business segment? Give some examples.

Preparing variable and absorption costing income statements

Claudiaโ€™s Foods produces frozen meals that it sells for \(11 each. The company computes a new monthly fixed manufacturing overhead allocation rate based on the planned number of meals to be produced that month. Assume all costs and production levels are exactly as planned. The following data are from Lindaโ€™s Foodsโ€™s first month in business:

January 2018 Units produced and sold: Sales 850 meals Production 1,050 meals Variable manufacturing cost per meal \) 5Sales commission cost per meal 1 Total fixed manufacturing overhead 315Total fixed selling and administrative costs 450 Requirements

1. Compute the product cost per meal produced under absorption costing and under variable costing.

2. Prepare income statements for January 2018 using: a. absorption costing. b. variable costing.

3. Is operating income higher under absorption costing or variable costing in January?

What is absorption costing?

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