Portland Company's Ironton Plant produces precast ingots for industrial use. Carlos Santiago, who was recently appointed general manager of the Ironton Plant, has just been handed the plant's income statement for October. The statement is shown below:

Mr. Santiago was shocked to see the loss for the month, particularly since sales were exactly as budgeted. He stated, "I sure hope the plant has a standard cost system in operation. If it doesn't, I won't have the slightest idea of where to start looking for the problem."
The plant does use a standard cost system, with the following standard variable cost per ingot:

Mr. Santiago has determined that during October the plant produced 5,000 ingots and incurred the following costs:
a. Purchased 25,000 pounds of materials at a cost of $2.95 per pound. There were no raw materials in inventory at the beginning of the month.
b. Used 19,800 pounds of materials in production. (Finished goods and work in process inventories are insignificant and can be ignored.)
c. Worked 3,600 direct labor-hours at a cost of $8.70 per hour.
d. Incurred a total variable manufacturing overhead cost of $4,320 for the month. A total of 1,800 machine-hours was recorded.
It is the company's policy to close all variances to cost of goods sold on a monthly basis.

Required:
1. Compute the following variances for October:
a. Direct materials price and quantity variances.
b. Direct labor rate and efficiency variances.
c. Variable manufacturing overhead spending and efficiency variances.
2. Summarize the variances that you computed in (1) above by showing the net overall favorable or unfavorable variance for October. What impact did this figure have on the company's income statement?
3. Pick out the two most significant variances that you computed in (1) above. Explain to Mr. Santiago possible causes of thesevariances.

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Budgeted Actual Sales (5,000 ingots) Variable expenses $250,000 $250,000 Variable cost of goods sold 96,390 20,000 100,000 116,390 150,000 133,610 80,000 20,000 Total variable expenses Contribution margin Fixed expenses: Manufacturing overhead 60,000 75,000 135,000 135,000 15,000 $(1,390) 60,000 75,000 Total fixed expenses Net operating income (loss) Contains direct materials, direct labor, and variable manufacturing overhead Standard Ouantity Standard Price Standard or Hours or Rate Cost Direct materials. Direct labor. 4.0 pounds $2.50 per pound $10.00 5.40 0.60 0.6 hours 0.3 hours $9.00 per hour $2.00 per hour Total standard variable cos $16.00 Based on machine-hours.