Pittman Company is a small but growing manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. The company has no sales force of its own rather, it relles completely on independent sales agents to market its products. These agents are poid a soles commission of 15% for items sold. Barbara Cheney. Pittman's controller, has just prepared the company's budgeted income statement for next year as follows: As Barbara handed the statement to Karl Vecci, Pittman's president, she commented, I went ahead and used the agents' 15% commission rate in completing these statements, but we ve just learned that they refuse to handle our products next year unless we increase the commission rate to 20% : "That's the last straw" Karl replied angrlly. -Those agents have been demanding more and more, and this time they've gone too for. How can they possibly defend a 20% commission rate? "They claim that after paying for advertising, travel, and the other costs of promotion, there's nothing left over for profit," replied Barbara. "I say it's just plain robbery; retorted Karl. "And l also say it's time we dumped those guys and got our own sales force. Can you get your people to work up some cost figures for us to look ot?" "We've aiready worked them up" said Barbara "Several companies we know about pay a 7.5% commission to their own salespeople. along with o small solary. Of course, we would hove to hondle all promotion costs, too. We figure our fixed expenses would increase by $3,825,000 per yeor, but that would be more than offset by the $5,100,000(20%$25,500,000) that we would ovoid on agents commissions: The breakdown of the $3,825,000 cost follows: "Super," replied Karl. "And I noticed that the $3,825,000 equals what we're paying the agents under the old 15% commission rate. "It's even better than that," explained Barbara. "We can actually save $117,300 a year because that's what we're paying our auditors to check out the ogents' reports. So our overall administrative expenses would be less." "Pull all of these numbers together and we'll show them to the executive committee tomorrow". soid Karl. "With the approval of the committee, we can move on the matter immediately: Required: 1. Compute Pittman Company's break-even point in dollar soles for next year assuming: o. The agents' commission rate remains unchanged at 15% b. The ogents' commission rate is increased to 20%. c. The company employs its own sales force. 2. Assume that Pittman Company decides to continue selling through agents and pays the 20% commission rate. Determine the dollar sales that would be required to generate the same net income as contoined in the budgeted income statement for next year. 3. Determine the dollor sales at which net income would be equal regardiess of whether Pittman Company sells through ogents (at a 20% commission rate) or employs its own sales force. 4. Compute the degree of operating leverage that the company would expect to hove at the end of next year assuming. a. The agents commission rote remains unchanged ot 15%. b. The agents' commission rote is increased to 20%. c. The compony employs its own sales force. Use income before income taxes in your operating leverage computation. Complete this question by entering your answers in the tabs below. Compute Pittman Company's break-even point in dollar sales for next year assuming: (Round CM ratio to 3 decimal places and final answers to the nearest dollar amount.)
