Problem 7-16 Comparing Traditional and Activity-Based Product Margins [LO7-1, LO7-3, LO7-4, LO7-5]

Hi-Tek Manufacturing, Inc., makes two types of industrial component partsthe B300 and the T500. An absorption costing income statement for the most recent period is shown:

Hi-Tek Manufacturing Inc.

Income StatementSales$1,695,300Cost of goods sold1,224,445Gross margin470,855Selling and administrative expenses560,000Net operating loss$(89,145)

Hi-Tek produced and sold 60,000 units of B300 at a price of $20 per unit and 12,700 units of T500 at a price of $39 per unit. The company's traditional cost system allocates manufacturing overhead to products using a plantwide overhead rate and direct labor dollars as the allocation base. Additional information relating to the company's two product lines is shown below:

B300T500TotalDirect materials$400,300$162,300$562,600Direct labor$120,300$42,500162,800Manufacturing overhead499,045Cost of goods sold$1,224,445

The company has created an activity-based costing system to evaluate the profitability of its products. Hi-Tek's ABC implementation team concluded that $57,000 and $109,000 of the company's advertising expenses could be directly traced to B300 and T500, respectively. The remainder of the selling and administrative expenses was organization-sustaining in nature. The ABC team also distributed the company's manufacturing overhead to four activities as shown below:

Manufacturing

OverheadActivityActivity Cost Pool (and Activity Measure)B300T500TotalMachining (machine-hours)$202,82590,40062,100152,500Setups (setup hours)135,02074240314Product-sustaining (number of products)100,600112Other (organization-sustaining costs)60,600NANANATotal manufacturing overhead cost$499,045

Required:

1. Compute the product margins for the B300 and T500 under the company's traditional costing system.

2. Compute the product margins for B300 and T500 under the activity-based costing system.

3. Prepare quantitative comparison of the traditional and activity-based cost assignments.

Expert Answer