Ask Me Help Desk

Ask Me Help Desk (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forum.php)
-   Finance & Accounting (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=411)
-   -   Confused; any help please?--Predetermined overhead rate under traditional method (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=817774)

  • Nov 1, 2015, 10:34 AM
    tubist
    Confused; any help please?--Predetermined overhead rate under traditional method
    Manzeck Company operates a snow-removal service. The company owns five trucks, each of which has a snow plow in the front to plow driveways and a snowthrower in the back to clear sidewalks. Because plowing snow is very tough on trucks, the company incurs significant maintenance costs. Truck depreciation and maintenance represents a significant portion of the company's overhead. The company removes snow at residential locations, in which case the drivers spend the bulk of their time walking behind the snowthrower machine to clear sidewalks. On commercial jobs, the drivers spend most of their time plowing. Manzeck allocates overhead based on labor hours. Total overhead costs for the year are $43,300. Total labor hours are 1,270 hours. The average residential property requires 1 hours of labor, while the average commercial property requires 3 hours of labor. The following additional information is available.
    Activity cost Pools
    Cost Drivers
    Estimated Overhead
    Expected Use of Cost Drivers per Activity
    Plowing
    Square yards of surface plowed $38,200 221,000
    Snowthrowing
    Linear feet of sidewalk cleared $4,000 45,000
    Determine the predetermined overhead rate under traditional costing? I found the rate as 34.09
    the amount of overhead allocated to the average residential job using traditional costing based on labor hours???
  • Nov 6, 2015, 06:19 PM
    paraclete
    It would seem there are vastly different conditions associated with each activity and therefore a single rate between two diverse activities is a mistake in principle and would lead to cross subsidisation

    Plowing has an overhead cost per square yard of $0.17
    Snow throwing has an overhead cost per linear feet of $0.09
    You have calculated a rate based on labour hours but other criteria suggest better methodology a good guide is to use the parameter
    Of largest dimension in this case volumetric data

  • All times are GMT -7. The time now is 08:58 AM.