Majed and Faisal are friends and partners of an elite dentistry clinic called Wide Smile Dentistry Medical Centre in Muscat. The clinic is well-known for providing two services for clients: in-clinic treatment and home-visit treatment. The clinic has established itself well in the healthcare dentistry market due to the long experience of the main dentists working in the clinic and the good home-call services they provide. Some clients complained the cost might be too high for the services offered and started shifting to other clinics which copied the Wide Smile model of services. As part of the investigation to determine the contribution that each of these services make to the overall profit and to determine the "right" prices and costs for services offered, Faisal is convinced that the allocation of overhead costs using the traditional way may be distorting the financial data used for pricing and cost decisions. Faisal learned in a recent MBA workshop about Activity Based Costing system (ABC) and its benefits. However, Majed argues that using a single cost object for cost allocation based on direct labor hours is simpler and is effective. Both partners finally agreed to settle this argument using last year data for analysis and comparison. The following table shows the overhead costs for the year ended December 31,2020 and the selected cost drivers as suggested by Faisal: Activity Cost Pool Cost Driver Units of Cost Allocation Based Total In-Clinic Home Service Visit Service Drug Treatment Treatments RO 35,000 5,000 treatments 1.500 3.500 Surgery Operations RO. 70,000 500 operations 100 Orthodontics Treatments RO. 50,000 3,000 treatments 2.100 900 Consultation Appointments Calls R.O. 12,000 2000 appointment 1.200 1.800 calls Travel Cost Kilometers R0.10,000 50,000 Km 5.000 45,000 Reception Customer Direct Labor Hours RO 25,000 30,000 Hours 20,000 10.000 Care Rent Square Feet R.O. 8,000 1200 Square Feet 90 300 Occupied Other Overhead Direct Labor Hours R.O.20,000 30,000 Hours 20,000 10,000 Costs TOTAL RO 230,000 Other Overhead Costs includes depreciation, advertising, insurance and utilities. Faisal appointed your group to help with the decision whether to implement the ABC system in their healthcare company and asked you to prepare a report for him and his partner. Your assignment is to write a report that should include the following: Overhead Cost 400 Part Three: Applying ABC Systems to Wide Smile Dentistry Medical Centre (13 marks) A) State in details what steps should be taken to implement the ABC system for the clinic. B) Apply the ABC system using the data provided by the clinic and compare results with the traditional system. C) Draw your conclusion and feedback on the results and the cost drivers selected. D) Describe how the change to ABC might be useful to Wide Smile and suggest ways for improvement. E) In what cases it would not be useful to refine the traditional cost system into an ABC system? F) identify the cost hierarchy for each of the costs listed. Part Four: Ethics Case (4 marks) The home-visit service supervisor who is also a friend of Faisal approached him when heard that the company is considering using ABC system and raised his concerns that the new costs might affect how costs appear in comparison - which could affect his bonus. After Faisal explained the benefits of ABC, the supervisor begged Faisal to 'smooth the numbers enough' for the home-visit service because he needs his bonus for his son's brain surgery. Faisal consulted you on this matter. A) Who are the stakeholders in this situation? B) What are the ethical considerations in this situation? And C) What are Faisal's and your ethical obligation, as an accountant, to the company and to the friend
