Exercise 3-13 Varying Predetermined Overhead Rates [LO3-1, LO3-2, LO3-3]

Kingsport Containers Company makes a single product that is subject to wide seasonal variations in demand. The company uses a job-order costing system and computes predetermined overhead rates on a quarterly basis using the number of units to be produced as the allocation base. Its estimated costs, by quarter, for the coming year are given below:

	Quarter
	First	Second	Third	Fourth
Direct materials	$	240,000	$	120,000	$	60,000	$	180,000
Direct labor		120,000		60,000		30,000		90,000
Manufacturing overhead		230,000		206,000		194,000		?
Total manufacturing costs (a)	$	590,000	$	386,000	$	284,000	$	?
Number of units to be produced (b)		80,000		40,000		20,000		60,000
Estimated unit product cost (a b)	$	7.38	$	9.65	$	14.20	$	?

Management finds the variation in quarterly unit product costs to be confusing and difficult to work with. It has been suggested that the problem lies with manufacturing overhead because it is the largest element of total manufacturing cost. Accordingly, you have been asked to find a more appropriate way of assigning manufacturing overhead cost to units of product.

Required:
1-a.	Using the high-low method, estimate the fixed manufacturing overhead cost per quarter and the variable manufacturing overhead cost per unit.(Round the "Variable manufacturing overhead per unit" to 2 decimal places.)

1-b.	Compute the total manufacturing cost and unit product cost for the fourth quarter.(Round the "Unit product cost" to 2 decimal places.)

3.	Estimate the total manufacturing overhead cost for the year and an annual predetermined overhead rate.(Round the "Predetermined overhead rate" to 2 decimal places.)