COMPREHENSIVE PROBLEM $6$

UTEASE CORPORATION

Utease Corporation has several production plants nationwide. A newly opened plant in Dubuque

produces and sells one product. The plant is treated, for responsibility accounting purposes, as a profit

center. The unit standard costs for a production unit, with overhead applied based on direct labor

hours, are as follows:

Manufacturing costs $($per unit based on expected activity of $24,000$ units or $36,000$

direct labor hours$)$:

Direct materials $(2$ pounds at $$20)$

Direct labor $(1\mathrm{.}5$ hours at $$90)$

Variable overhead $(1\mathrm{.}5$ hours at $$20)$

Fixed overhead $(1\mathrm{.}5$ hours at $$30)$

Standard cost per unit

Budgeted selling and administrative costs:

Variable

$$1,800,000$

Fixed

Expected sales activity: $20,000$ units at $$425$ per unit

Desired ending inventories: $10\%$ of sales

Assume this is the first year of operations for the Dubuque plant. During the year, the company had

the following activity:

In addition, all over$-$ or underapplied overhead and all product cost variances are adjusted to cost of

goods sold.

Instructions

a$.$ Prepare a production budget for the coming year based on the available standards, expected sales,

and desired ending inventories.

b$.$ Prepare a budgeted responsibility income statement for the Dubuque plant for the coming year.

c$.$ Find the direct labor variances. Indicate if they are favorable or unfavorable and why they would be considered as such. d$.$ Find the direct materials variances $($materials price variance and quantity variance$).$ e$.$ Find the total overor underapplied $($both fixed and variable$)$ overhead. Would cost of goods sold be a larger or smaller expense item after the adjustment for overor underapplied overhead? f$.$ Calculate the actual plant operating profit$/$loss for the year. Page $1128$ g$.$ Use a flexible budget to explain the difference between the budgeted operating profit and the actual operating profit for the Dubuque plant for its first year of operations. What part of the difference do you believe is the plant manager$$s responsibility? h$.$ Assume Utease Corporation is planning to change its evaluation of business operations in all plants from the profit center format to the investment center format. If the average invested capital at the Dubuque plant is $$8,050,000,$ compute the return on investment $($ROI$)$ for the first year of operations. Use the DuPont method of evaluation to compute the return on sales $($ROS$)$ and capital turnover $($CT$)$ for the plant. i$.$ Assume that under the investment center evaluation plan, the plant manager will be awarded a bonus based on ROI. If the manager has the opportunity in the coming year to invest in new equipment for $$600,000$ that will generate incremental earnings of $$108,000$ per year, would the manager undertake the project? Why or why not? What other evaluation tools could Utease use for its plants that might be better? j$.$ The chief financial officer of Utease Corporation wants to include a charge in each investment center$$s income statement for corporatewide administrative expenses. Should the Dubuque plant manager$$s annual bonus be based on plant ROI after deducting the corporatewide administrative fee? Why or why not?