Trend Analysis: A trend analysis is an aspect of technical analysis that tries to predict the future sales of the organization based on past data. Trend analysis is based on the idea that what has happened in the past gives organization an idea of what will happen in the future.
Econometric Models: Economic models is the approach to enter all past sales information into a regression model to get a statistical estimate of factors that affects sales.
Forecasting Production
Based on the sales forecasting that was made, the organization now has to forecast production. The production budget calculates the number of units of products that must be manufactured, and is derived from a combination of the sales forecast and the planned amount of finished
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Without direct labor, it is impossible for the work to be done. The direct labor budget is used to calculate the number of labor hours that will be needed to produce the units itemized in the production budget. The direct labor budget is useful for anticipating the number of employees who will be needed to staff the manufacturing area throughout the budget period. This allows management to anticipate hiring needs, as well as when to schedule overtime, and when layoffs are likely. (www.accountingtools.com)
Overhead: Overhead cost is an other important cost in the production process. Overhead cost can be by an estimating on the production forecasting, organization discretions. Overhead expenses are all costs on the income statement except for direct labor, direct materials, and direct expenses. It includes accounting fees, advertising, insurance, interest, legal fees, labor burden, rent, repairs, supplies, taxes, telephone bills, travel expenditures, and utilities.
Completing the Budgeted Cost of Goods Sold: This is an important part of the budget because in will be the revenue that will be derived after the goods are sold. This include the estimated beginning and ending work-in-process and finished goods inventories to determined the required number of units
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Being able to market product or service very well determine how a successful the organization will be. Having said that, it does not mean there should be no restrictions or budget as to how much can be spent in that area. The marketing and administrative budget is to include data processing, accounting, personnel, marketing, utilities, etc. It is sometimes very difficult to come out with this kind of budget. Lanan et al., explained that an easy way to deal with the problem is to start with the previous period’s actual or budgeted amounts and make adjustments for inflation, changes in operations and similar changes between periods. This method has been criticized and can be viewed as being very simplistic but it has one advantages. It is relatively easy and inexpensive. As always, the benefits of improving budgeting methods must justify their increased cost.
(Fundamentals of cost accounting, p 501)
According to Kirk
Overhead based on units sold includes only sales and marketing. Sales and marketing will be targeted mostly towards the products that are already on the market, and so units sold is the best way to associate the cost with each product. (Figure A)
The presentation of the material is in dollars only. Overhead is applied to products as a percent of direct labor dollar cost. Factory profit for each year is found by subtracting direct material, direct labor, and direct overhead costs from total sales. The overhead percentage is calculated at the same time budgeting and is applied as a single overhead pool throughout each model year. The consulting company used 435% of direct labor costs in 1987 for their study; the budgeted was actually 437% (OH/DL=107,954/24,682). A similar percentage applies in the following year (109890/25294=434.5%). However in the next two years, after the outsourcing of oil pans and mufflers was enacted, the allocation of overhead in...
Wilkerson uses a simple cost accounting system in which each unit is charged for direct labor and material costs in addition to overhead costs, which are allocated depending on the percentage of production-run direct labor usage. Under this system, the overhead percentage set by Wilkerson was 300%. This standardized system, however, did not reflect the specific complexities of each
When a company purchases raw materials it will be recorded in Raw Material inventory. Once the raw materials are used, their costs are transferred to the Work in Process inventory account as direct material. Moreover, direct labor and overhead costs are also charged to the Work in Process inventory (http://novellaqalive2.mhhe.com/sites/0073379417/student_view0/ebook/chapter2/chbody3/product_cost_flows.html). As the process of a production is complete, the goods are transferred to the Finished Goods inventory, and then the finished products are sold. Once the products are sold, the costs are transferred to the Cost of Goods
There are three different general trends (directions to prices or rates) in the economy. " Those with predictive value are leading indicators; those occurring at the same time as the related economic activity are coincident indicators; and those that only become apparent after the activity are lagging indicators. Examples are unemployment, housing starts, Consumer Price Index, industrial production, bankruptcies, GDP, stock market prices, money supply changes, and housing starts also called business indicators." http://www.investorwords.com/1643/economic_indicator.html.
2. Increase accuracy in the product cost calculating. While using ABC, direct materials and direct labors can be classified into products, manufacturing overhead will be classified into the homogeneous cost pool. Then, apportioned the manufacturing overhead into products according to reasonable distribution cost standard. The standard of cost allocation becomes more direct and specific, leading to many traditional uncontrollable indirect cost changes into controllable direct cost. And this provides more accurate information to cost control.
A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.
These costs are not straightforwardly associated to a project. Examples include organization costs such as advertising or accounting. G&A costs are generally billed as a percent of total costs, or items such as labor, materials, or equipment. Using the sums of direct and overhead costs for work packages, it is possible to cumulate the costs for any deliverable for the entire project (Gray & Larson, 2005).
Also, please take into consideration how these reports are completed. These reports essentially summarize the cost of production activity with a specific reporting period and is a formalized summary of the four main steps that accounting uses to assign a fixed cost to units that are in and out in the final work-in-progress(WIP) inventory, which is inventory that is partially completed(Kimmel, et.al., 2017). In order for accounting to prepare its balance sheet, it is necessary to utilize these four steps to ensure that the production cost report reflects accurate data on inventory(Accounting Coach, 2017). The steps that were performed in creating this report were as
Quantitative plans are called budgets. Budgets are prepared to impose cost controls on the activities of an organization (Chenhall, 1986).Budgets are then used to evaluate the performance of the management and budget itself is considered as a standard to evaluate the performance Solomon, 1956). The purpose of the budget is also to implement the strategy of the organization and communicate it to the employees of the organization Rickards (2006). The change in the external environment has led to the change in the budgeting approaches from the initial cash based budgets to the zerio based budgets (Bovaird, 2007).
Term “marginal” is extensively used and known with reference to the economics which means “extra”, whereas with economic view point the marginal cost is the cost of producing every extra unit; however the accounting terminology of “marginal” defines the cost incurred on production other than its fixed cost is the marginal cost. Simply, none of the technique is applied unless it serves the benefits and the marginal costing is used by the firms for its registered benefits. Among all its benefits the primary advantage it serves is its attempt to distinguish the fixed and variable costs, and the method only considers the related variable costs to be included in production cost and the fixed costs are thus later deducted out for ascertaining net profit. The inventory at the year-end is also valued on the bases of variable cost. With all these beneficial characteristics of the said system firms using marginal costing are clearly aware of its ...
"Both methods estimate overhead costs related to production and then assign these costs to products based on a cost-driver rate. The differences are in the accuracy and complexity of the two methods" (1) , Now we will discuss why ABC can result in more reliable products costs than conventional labor based product costing system . In recent years, the nature of industrial production has fundamentally altered; we will discuss their characteristics. First we have machine production and capital intensive, Now machines are the main tool and at the heart of production; labors maintain machines and supervise them, and machines are the ones that dictates the pace and rate of production. The second characteristic is high level of overheads relative to direct cost; in modern businesses they tend to use overheads in different ways for example: some products need engineering time and some products require machine time so that products will use overheads differently. The third characteristic is highly competitive international market, transportation including fast freight and relatively cheap; one of the advantages is the use of internet ensures that customers can easily and quickly reach and find products and also cheaply, this environment is highly competitive so companies need to know accurately their range of prices in order to use this information to gain competitive advantage over other
The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data
Capital budgeting is one of the primary activities of a company. Most of the company uses capital budgeting for decision making process of selecting and evaluating long-term investment. The company have to make a right decision with respect to investment in fixed asset such as purchasing of new equipment and delivery vehicles, constructing additions to buildings and many more. The decision must be right because of the project involve huge amount of cash outflow and it is committed for many years.
It requires an adequate and sound organizational structure, that is, there must be a definite assignment of responsibility for each function of the enterprise. Budgeting compels all the members of management, from the top to bottom to participate in the establishment of goals and plans. Budgeting compels departmental managers to make plans in harmony with the other departments and of the entire enterprise. Budgeting helps the management to put down in figures what is necessary for a satisfactory performance. Budgeting helps the management to plan for the most economical use of labor, material and capital. Budgeting tends to remove the cloud of uncertainty that exists in many organizations, especially among lower levels of management, relative to basic policies and objectives. Budgeting promotes an understanding among members of management of their co-workers' problems. Budgeting force management to give adequate attention to the effects of general business conditions. Budgeting aids in obtaining bank credit as banks commonly require a projection of future operations and cash flows to support