Problem: Maryville Manufacturing designs and builds custom mudroom storage benches. All of the mudroom storage benches are constructed with rustic hickory. Its budgeted manufacturing costs for the 2019 year are as follows.

Overhead Cost Pools	Amount
Purchasing	$ 100,000
Handling materials	80,000
Production (cutting, milling, finishing)	150,000
Setting up machines	50,000
Inspecting	80,000
Inventory control (raw materials and finished goods)	60,000
Utilities	150,000
Total budgeted overhead costs	$670,000

For the last 5 years, Maryville Manufacturing has been charging overhead to products on the basis of materials cost. For the year 2019, materials cost of $600,000 were budgeted.

Jim Johnson, owner-manager of Maryville Manufacturing, recently directed his accountant, Ledger Kaufman, to implement the activity-based costing system that he has repeatedly proposed. At Jims request, Ledger and the production foreman identify the following cost drivers and their usage for the previously budgeted overhead cost pools.

Overhead Cost Pools	Activity Cost Drivers	Expected Use of Cost Drivers
Purchasing	Number of orders	1,000
Handling materials	Number of moves	2,000
Production (cutting, milling, finishing)	Direct labor hours	60,000
Setting up machines	Number of setups	500
Inspecting	Number of inspections	6,000
Inventory control (raw materials and finished goods)	Number of components	20,000
Utilities	Square feet occupied	25,000

Doug Russell, sales manager, has received an order for 12 custom mudroom storage benches from Homes by Kathy. At Dougs request, Ledger prepares costs estimates for producing 12 mudroom storage benches so Doug can submit a contract price per mudroom storage bench to Homes by Kathy. He accumulates the following data for the production of 12 mudroom storage benches.

Direct materials	$7,500
Direct labor	$2,500
Direct labor hours	100
Number of purchase orders	5
Number of material moves	15
Number of machine setups	2
Number of inspections	30
Number of components	250
Number of square feet occupied	200

Required:

1. Compute the predetermined overhead rate using traditional costing with direct materials cost as the allocation base.
2. Compute the total cost of manufacturing one mudroom storage bench using direct materials cost as the allocation base for manufacturing overhead.
3. Compute the predetermined overhead rate using traditional costing with direct labor hours as the allocation base.
4. Compute the total cost of manufacturing one mudroom storage bench using direct labor hours as the allocation for manufacturing overhead.
5. Compute the predetermined overhead rate per cost driver for each of the overhead cost pools using the proposed activity-based costing system.
6. Compute the total cost of manufacturing one mudroom storage bench using the proposed activity-based costing system.
7. Which allocation base is preferable under traditional costing and why?
8. Which costing system (traditional or activity-based) is preferable in pricing decisions and why?