10.M.

Mastery Problem: Evaluating Decentralized Operations

BOR CPAs, Inc.

BOR CPAs, Inc. is a closely held corporation owned by three stockholders who used the initials of their last names to form the corporations name: Cyrus Bailey, John Ogden, and Samuel Rogers. The firms Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) perform audits of both public companies and privately owned companies. BORs CPAs also provide tax services to both individuals and businesses.

The corporation is divided into two profit centers: the Audit Division and the Tax Division. Each division is composed of two cost centers. The Audit Division is composed of two cost-center departments: Public Company Audits and Private Company Audits. The Tax Division is composed of two cost-center departments also: Individual Tax and Business Tax.

BOR, a decentralized organization, is interested in evaluating the performance of the two divisions. The stockholders are responsible for deciding on investment in the two divisions. Cyrus Bailey is in charge of the performance evaluation, and turns to you for assistance. Mr. Bailey is only interested in evaluating operations at the profit center (division) level, and not at the cost center (department) level.

Mr. Bailey is considering temporarily using some of the staff from the Tax Division to assist the Audit Division during the upcoming busy audit season, and would like to evaluate the effect of this on net income. The Tax Division is estimated to have 800 hours of excess capacity.

The unit for determining sales revenue in both divisions is the "engagement", which means the total agreed-upon work for a given client in either audit or tax for a given year. The company charges on average a fee of $75,000 per audit engagement, and $15,750 per tax engagement.

The company has its own Payroll Office, which provides payroll services to both divisions and will allocate its total expenses to the two divisions as support department allocations.

The following chart shows some basic data for the company:

Hourly market rate for staff (the price the company would have to pay from an outside contractor for staff services)	$110
Average hourly cost rate for staff (the average price the company pays to its staff)	$60
Number of paychecks issued by Audit Division	110
Number of paychecks issued by Tax Division	340
Total expense for Payroll Office	$29,250
Amount of assets invested in Audit Division by BOR CPAs, Inc.	$10,000,000
Amount of assets invested in Tax Division by BOR CPAs, Inc.	$5,000,000

Payroll

Mr. Bailey would like you to start by analyzing the Payroll Office expenses, and allocating the total expenses to each division. He has decided to use the number of payroll checks as the activity base for the allocation.

Fill in the following blanks, allocating the total expense for the Payroll Office to each of the two divisions.

Payroll Charge Rate $fill in the blank 2ef4fafe1ff7044_1 per payroll check

Division	Support Department Allocations
Audit Division	$fill in the blank 2ef4fafe1ff7044_2
Tax Division	$fill in the blank 2ef4fafe1ff7044_3

Performance Evaluation

A profit center manager has the responsibility and authority for making decisions that affect revenues and costs and, thus, profits. The manager of a profit center does not make decisions concerning the fixed assets invested in the center. Responsibility accounting for profit centers such as the Audit Division and Tax Division take the form of income statements, which should include only controllable revenues and controllable expenses.

Although it is not technically a decentralized unit, BOR CPAs, Inc. as a whole may be considered as an investment center. Thus, Mr. Bailey is also interested in evaluating the performance of the company as a whole. Two performance measures that are used at the investment center level are return on investment and residual income.

Mr. Bailey would like to use the DuPont formula, composed of profit margin and investment turnover, to break down the return on investment, in order to evaluate each division. At the company level, Mr. Bailey would like to use return on investment to evaluate the overall performance of the company and its investment decisions with regard to each division.

Mr. Bailey has prepared the following divisional income statement for you to review, assuming no transfer of excess capacity hours occurs. He has also included the total amounts for BOR CPAs, Inc. in the rightmost column.

Complete the following Divisional Income Statements with your data from the Payroll.

BOR CPAs, Inc. Divisional Income Statements For the Year Ended December 31, 20Y8
	Audit Division	Tax Division	Total Company
Fees earned:
Audit fees (12 engagements)	$900,000		$900,000
Tax fees (45 engagements)		$708,750	708,750
Transfer-pricing fees			0
Expenses:
Variable:
Audit hours provided by Audit Division	(216,000)		(216,000)
Tax hours provided by Tax Division		(283,500)	(283,500)
Excess capacity hours paid to salaried staff		(48,000)	(48,000)
Audit hours provided by Tax Division		0	0
Fixed expenses	(50,000)	(65,500)	(115,500)
Operating income before support department allocations	$634,000	$311,750	$945,750
Support department allocations for payroll	___	___	___
Operating income	____	___	__

Mr. Bailey asks that you prepare Divisional Income Statements showing what 20Y8 results would have been had the Audit Division purchased all the excess capacity of the Tax Division, using a market transfer price. The divisional managers tell you that, with the excess capacity of the Tax Division of 800 hours, the Audit Division can perform 4 more audits during the year, and the Tax Division would charge the Audit Division the market rate of $110 per hour for the additional hours required, selling all its excess capacity to the Audit Division. The Tax Division would still be responsible for paying the salaries of their employees.

Complete the following Divisional Income Statements. If there is no amount or an amount is zero, enter 0.

BOR CPAs, Inc. Divisional Income Statements For the Year Ended December 31, 20Y8
	Audit Division	Tax Division	Total Company
Fees earned:
Audit fees (16 engagements)	$1,200,000		$1,200,000
Tax fees (45 engagements)		$708,750	708,750
Transfer-pricing fees		___	____
Expenses:
Variable:
Audit hours provided by Audit Division	(216,000)		(216,000)
Tax hours provided by Tax Division		(283,500)	(283,500)
Excess capacity hours paid to salaried staff		____	____
Audit hours provided by Tax Division	____	____	____
Fixed expenses	(50,000)	(65,500)	(115,500)
Operating income before support department allocations	____	____	_____
Support department allocations for payroll	_____	_____	_____
Operating income	____	____	_____

Negotiated Transfer Price

Mr. Bailey asks that you prepare Divisional Income Statements showing what 20Y8 results would have been had the Audit Division purchased all the excess capacity of the Tax Division, using a negotiated transfer price. The divisional managers tell you that, with the excess capacity of the Tax Division of 800 hours, the Audit Division can perform 4 more audits during the year, and the Audit Division would agree to a negotiated rate of $90 per hour to be paid to the Tax Division for the additional hours required, with the Tax Division selling all its excess capacity to the Audit Division. The Tax Division would still be responsible for paying the salaries of their employees.

Complete the following Divisional Income Statements. If there is no amount or an amount is zero, enter 0.

BOR CPAs, Inc. Divisional Income Statements For the Year Ended December 31, 20Y8
	Audit Division	Tax Division	Total Company
Fees earned:
Audit fees (16 engagements)	$1,200,000		$1,200,000
Tax fees (45 engagements)		$708,750	708,750
Transfer-pricing fees		____	____
Expenses:
Variable:
Audit hours provided by Audit Division	(216,000)		(216,000)
Tax hours provided by Tax Division		(283,500)	(283,500)
Excess capacity hours paid to salaried staff		_____	_____
Audit hours provided by Tax Division	_____	_______	________
Fixed expenses	(50,000)	(65,500)	(115,500)
Operating income before support department allocations	_______	_______	______
Support department allocations for payroll	_______	______	______
Operating income	______	_____	____

Cost Transfer Price

Mr. Bailey asks that you prepare Divisional Income Statements showing what 20Y8 results would have been had the Audit Division purchased all the excess capacity of the Tax Division, using a cost transfer price. The divisional managers tell you that, with the excess capacity of the Tax Division of 800 hours, the Audit Division can perform 4 more audits during the year, and the Audit Division would pay the Tax Division's internal hourly rate of $60 per hour for the additional hours required, with the Tax Division selling all its excess capacity to the Audit Division. The Tax Division would still be responsible for paying the salaries of their employees.

Complete the following Divisional Income Statements. If there is no amount or an amount is zero, enter 0.

BOR CPAs, Inc. Divisional Income Statements For the Year Ended December 31, 20Y8
	Audit Division	Tax Division	Total Company
Fees earned:
Audit fees (16 engagements)	$1,200,000		$1,200,000
Tax fees (45 engagements)		$708,750	708,750
Transfer-pricing fees		_____	_____
Expenses:
Variable:
Audit hours provided by Audit Division	(216,000)		(216,000)
Tax hours provided by Tax Division		(283,500)	(283,500)
Excess capacity hours paid to salaried staff		_______	______
Audit hours provided by Tax Division	_______	______	_______
Fixed expenses	(50,000)	(65,500)	(115,500)
Operating income before support department allocations	_______	________	_______
Support department allocations for payroll	______	_______	_______
Operating income	_______	_______	_______