Several years ago, Westmont Corporation developed a comprehensive budgeting system for planning and control purposes. While

departmental supervisors have been happy with the system, the factory manager has expressed considerable dissatisfaction with the

information being generated by the system.

A report for the company's Assembly Department for the month of March follows:

After receiving a copy of this cost report, the supervisor of the Assembly Department stated, "These reports are super. It makes me

feel really good to see how well things are going in my department. I can't understand why those people upstairs complain so much

about the reports."

For the last several years, the company's marketing department has chronically failed to meet the sales goals expressed in the

company's monthly budgets.